
1^- 



I LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

1^ ^^^ • ^mR^ \ 



k 



a/fifif^tfi. 



T 



^UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. | 



•; 



PRESIDENT REED 



PENNSYLVANIA. 



A REPLY TO 



MR. GEORGE BANCROFT AND OTHERS. 



"^VUcl, t!i:il, knows aiijthius of liti.'iMi-y Iiistory or ol' society, canuot recall a number of cases 
where slander, however base and basch'ss, has been believed to be true, for no other reason than 
because it has never been contradicted? Nay, a calumny may have been buried in obecu- 
rity for centuries and millenaries and at length some literary truiTle dog will hunt it out ; and, 
if it do but concern some grcrit man, the vulgar will pelt it at his head." — hare's vindication op 

NIBBliHK. 



FEBRUARY, A. I). 1867. 



1> H I L A I) E L I' H 1 A : 

H t) \V A R D C H A L ), E N , I 3 O 8 C H E S T N U T S T R F. E T, 

[oHN Camprem,, 740 Sa.VSOM S T R E E T. 



/Hi 



E- 



,0' 



Entered, according to the Act ol Congress, in the ytfar 1867, 

Bt WILLIAM B. SEED, 

in the (:l.ik's Office of the Bistrict Court of the United States in and for tlie 

Krtstorn District of Pennsylvimiii. 



W. V. Kii,t>irt:. Vrixtkr. 



INTROD UCTION. 

It will be apparent to every reader of the following 
pages that the historical materials they illustrate have not 
been recently collefted. Most of them have been in my 
possession for many years, but for reasons which I have 
frankly stated, were not used. Indeed, but for Mr. Ban- 
croft's late volume, which literally is the straw which 
broke the back of my endurance, they would not be 
used now. His book however, renders it necessary 
that I should break my silence. To those who think it 
would have been better had I not opened the whole sub- 
jed of the attacks on Mr. Reed, but confined myself to 
Mr. Bancroft's share of them, I suggest that, dealing as I 
am with at least one unscrupulous adversary, it would 
be hazardous to leave for his use the testimony, such 
as it is, of past times, and thus subjed: myself to the 
necessity of a rejoinder. Though Mr. Bancroft, with 
the exception of a single and unaccredited quotation, 
is silent as to the Pamphlets of the last century, he 
knows all about them, and had I answered the Donop 
fid:ion alone, he would have brought them forward as his 
fresh reserve. I had no alternative but to discuss the 
whole subjed;, and I have endeavoured to exhaust it. 

Chestnut Hill^ January^ 1867. W. B. Reed. 



ORE than eighty years after my ancestor was laid 
in his honoured grave, I am called on to vindi- 
cate his name. Instead of partisan misrepresentation 
(to use a mild word,) being allowed to die with the 
passions of a period of revolutionary excitement, it has 
been industriously kept alive, until at last, in the second 
and almost the third generation, the necessity of correft- 
ing and repelling it has arisen. There is, in this country, a 
class of men, happily not numerous, who take pleasure in 
disparaging the accredited patriots of the first revolution. 
They do so either from hereditary or personal animosity, 
or on a principle of paradox and contradiftion. They 
have two words of detraction for each one of praise which 
filial pride, or any good motive prompts, and their de- 
light is to rummage in forgotten libels. For them, the 
acrimonious pamphlets of past time, scraps of discredi- 
table and hostile diaries and letters are cherished treas- 
ures. They are a fund on which they draw freely. 
Sometimes they forge. 

Occasionally what may be described as these defama- 



4 

tory experiments, have gone so far and assumed a shape 
so precise as to require notice. This was so in one in- 
stance, within the recolledion of many of my imme- 
diate fellow citizens, I refer to a series of anon- 
ymous publications as to General Reed, in the autumn 
of 1842, under the signature of "Valley Forge,''' 
in a Philadelphia newspaper. Though these libels were 
met so promptly and decisively as to force an admission 
that the evidence on which they rested was forgery in 
its most flagrant form; though the infamy of the whole 
affair recoiled so fatally as to destroy the paper in which 
the publications appeared; though falsehood was, to the 
eye of any historical student, palpable in every line, and 
the result of detedtion proved it to be so; there were 
those who read and believed it all, and applauded the 
agents of this dark plan of detradlion. I have no doubt 
there are some yet who are willing to believe in what 
was marked with the stain of conceded fraud, and that 
the "Valley Forge forgeries" are carefully preserved to 
be revived, hereafter, to vilify anew the character of 
the dead, and wound the affeftions of the living. Two 
of these spurious letters were re-printed as genuine in 
this city, within the last three years.* 

* Evening Bulletin of Oftober 12th, 1863. The first communica- 
tion of "Valley Forge" appeared on the 14th of September, the last 
on or about the 24th of October, 1842. The Journal ceased to exist 
some time during the same winter. Its Editor having in vain endea- 
voured to ascertain the anonymous writer who had decoyed him into 
this scheme of infamy, voluntarily surrendered the manuscripts to the 



5 

It is doing General Reed's contemporary enemies in- 
justice to conned: them with assailants of this description. 
Yet the association is not mine. But for what is known 
as the Cadwalader pamphlet, the slanders of a later day 
would have perished at their birth, it being the practice 
of the authors of the new coinage, whenever their spu- 
rious issue was detedled, to fall back on it; and the argu- 
ment always has been, that this pamphlet was genuine, 
and worthy of notice and reply. It is the ultimate reli- 
ance, and by an ingenious involution of the genuine and 
the spurious, the ends of calumny have been attained, and 
the charader of a patriot of the Revolution, a man who 
filled, with honour, more high public trusts than usually 
are conferred on one, is whispered or clamoured away, in 
the city of his life and fame. To all this, it would be 
affectation in me to pretend indifference. I have felt it, 
and felt it deeply. With ample materials of vindication at 
hand; with a trust for the charafter of the dead, which 
seemed to press more strongly upon me as I watched from 
day to day the course and apparent fruition of these 
schemes of detradion, it has been hard to be silent. For a 
long while, with a determination not to be dragged, by se- 
cret and anonymous assailants, into possible controversy 
with the living, I was content to wait till I should be able 
to submit to the public a carefully digested mass of posi- 
tive evidence, in the form of a biographical work, on 

gentlemen whose families had been defamed, and died in May, 1845, at 
Washington. 



which my ancestor's claim on the gratitude of his coun- 
try might rest. My biography of President Reed was 
published in 1847, and, so far as I am able to judge, was 
kindly welcomed. In one resped, especially, this ap- 
proval gratified me, aside from the pleasure of knowing 
that my labour had not been in vain to make Pennsyl- 
vania proud of one of her sons. It gratified me to find 
that my personal friends, and even those who were still 
more disinterested, approved of the moderation with 
which I discussed points of disputed politics; and of the 
absence of anything tending to give pain to a living 
being. I am not aware of one written word of my own, 
that was not in a kind spirit, and in deference to the 
feelings of others, and this, too, with strong temptation 
occasionally, to speak out painful truth, let it wound 
whom it might. When, in m.y biography, I came to the 
Cadwalader controversy, I thus referred to it : 

"Judging from the newspapers and pamphlets, the 
year 1782, which found Mr. Reed a private citizen, was 
more convulsed by party spirit, raging apparently with- 
out restraint, than any previous period. The accredited 
newspaper organs of the two parties were filled with 
articles of extreme ferocity, directed at the respective 
leaders; and towards Mr. Reed especially, as one whose 
mere resignation of authority did not satisfy his enemies, 
the most intense animosity was manifested. There was 
no stint to anonymous defamation. On the side of the 
Constitutionalists quite as able partisans were in the field. 



7 

using their pens offensively as well as defensively. 
Among them, one who wrote under the name of "Va- 
lerius," and whose identity never was clearly ascertained, 
attracted great attention. The main object of his as- 
sault, made with great bitterness and eloquence, was Mr. 
Dickinson, who in November, 1782, had been eleded 
President by a small majority over General Potter, the 
Constitutional candidate. So effedive did these attacks 
become, that Mr. Dickinson faund it necessary to an- 
swer them, and to make an elaborate defence of his pub- 
lic condud;, in reply to this anonymous assailant. It 
would be entirely aside from the aim of these volumes 
to revive or minutely to refer to such controversies. 
They were in everv way discreditable; they may be con- 
signed to the oblivion which has nearly overtaken them, 
and may v/ell be left for the congenial research of a class 
of men, happily very limited, who take a malignant 
pleasure in defaming the memory of our Revolutionary 
patriots. Occasionally, controversies of a graver kind 
occurred at this season of diseased excitement. Of this 
description was one of a very painful nature, which, in 
the fall of 1782, Mr Reed was involved in, v/ith his for- 
mer companion-in-arms. General John Cadwalader. 
Pamphlets of great acrimony were published on each 
side. These pamphlets are now before me, but it is 
most consonant with my feelings to the living and the 
dead, that the controversy should be dismissed v/ith this 
incidental reference, which its importance at the time 



seemed to require, and with the expression of the con- 
viftion that had the lives of the parties, and especiallv 
of him who made the assault, been prolonged, and op- 
portunities such as we now have, been afforded, of col- 
lating testimony, and allowing transient resentments to 
subside, the fierceness of the controversy would have 
been succeeded by far more amiable feelings. But in 
less than three years from its date both parties were in 
their graves."* 

This seemed to be the best mode of treating a subje(5l 
which, in some of its relations, was of great delicacv. 
To omit all reference to it, would have been to give 
colour to the idea that I was unprepared, (unwilling I 
certainly was,) to discuss it. To do so in detail, would 
be to open anew a controversy long since gone by, to ex- 
cite unpleasant feelings, and possibly to affeft my perso- 
nal relations to those with whom I have always lived on 
terms of friendliness, and to whom I had no desire to 
give pain. To speak of it as a subject on which, time, 
had the lives of the parties been prolonged, might have 
shed a conciliatory influence, and yet, as one, as to which, 
if forced into controversy, I had no misgiving, seemed 
to be the true course. In pursuing it, I have reason to 
believe I had the approval of all fair-minded and con- 
siderate readers. Those only were disappointed, who 



* Life of Reed, vol. 2, page 382, Mr. Reed died March 5th, 1785 
Mr. Cadvvalader, loth February, 1786. 



hoped to see the living discredited by a revival of the 
altercations of the dead. 

No sooner, however, was the biography of President 
Reed given to the public — no sooner were kind words 
of approval heard — no sooner did it seem certain that 
his public charafter and services were, by the simple ex- 
position of truth, about to be appreciated in Pennsylva- 
nia, and, throughout the country — no sooner were the 
letters of Washington, and Lafayette, and Greene, and 
Wayne, and Henry Lee, to Mr. Reed read, and his 
aftual position, as their most valued and thoroughly 
trusted friend, illustrated by evidence, than it was 
thought necessary, in a sort of restless, mischief-making 
spirit, to try further experiments on public credulity, 
and to burnish up ancient weapons which had nearly 
rusted in their sheaths ; in other words, to print and cir- 
culate the Cadwalader Pamphlet of 17 83. Of its merits, 
I mean to speak clearly and decisively, so that about it, 
now, or hereafter, there shall be no misunderstanding. 
A single word as to its various re-publications, the first 
of which v/as in 1848. I was willing to account for this 
by attributing the enterprise to a mercenary motive; the 
cupidity of an unscrupulous publisher, who hoped, by 
a new edition of an ancient story, to make a few dollars. 
But I am constrained to believe, that it, too, was the 
fruit of secret and inveterate hostility, to be gratified, at 
any cost, and by any means; in short, that the authors 
of the forgeries of 1842, were again, in another form, 



lO 



busy at the secret work of malevolence. In this instance, 
they were working on genuine materials. No one ques- 
tions that General Cadwalader's pamphlet is genuine, or 
that it involved charges by a responsible accuser. That 
it did great injustice, and that its allegations were ground- 
less, having their origin in intense political animosity, 
and were so interpreted at the time, it will be my effort 
to demonstrate. The mode and number of these re- 
publications are remarkable. The first, in 1848, v/as 
printed in secret, with a preface endorsing and adopting 
the forgeries of 1842, and, though deposited for sale at 
an obscure book store, with pains taken, as the contri- 
vers of the scheme imagined, to secure extensive circula- 
tion. The date of the preface was "Trenton, December, 
1846;" in point of fad: the pamphlet was printed in 1848, 
at Philadelphia. Why all this indiredion; this falsify- 
ing of dates, had the objed been a fair one? — and why, 
if the aim were the mere corredion of a mistake of his- 
tory, was it necessary to distribute secretly, thousands 
of advertising circulars, all carefully direded and pre- 
paid ^ Yet, this was done. It seemed as if the desire 
to do me and mine injustice, was not to be checked by 
considerations of labour or expense. One result, imme- 
diately ensued. There was an universal burst of indig- 
nation, and the faint whispers of approval, or excuse, 
were scarcely audible. None, I have reason to know, 
were more annoyed by it than General Cadwalader's des- 
cendants. 



II 



Still, the authors attained one objed;. They re-pro- 
duced this almost forgotten pamphlet, and a number of 
copies were put in circulation, enough at least, to em- 
balm a painful controversy, for future and mischievous 
reference. 

It was again printed, with the forged documents, in 
1856. I have reason to believe that a new coinage of 
calumny and perhaps forgery, for they have generally 
been associated, was suppressed, or withheld in conse- 
quence of the catastrophe of the Arctic, in 1854, and 
the death of my brother, Mr. Henry Reed. The sor- 
row, which bowed a whole family to the earth, disarmed, 
for a time, these secret and industrious artificers of evil. 
The next revival of this ancient scandal was by Mr. 
John C. Hamilton, in the second volume of his "History 
of the Republic of the United States of America, as 
traced in the writings of Alexander Hamilton and his 
contemporaries;" a book designed, as it were, to chrys- 
tallise around the elder Hamilton, all the great results, 
and merits, and successes of the Revolution. Had the 
author of this grotesque work limited himself to the 
illustration of the services of his ancestor, there could 
have been no temptation to say a word about Mr. Reedj 
with whom, Mr. Alexander Hamilton had few, or no 
relations of any kind; but, as the theory of the book 
is, not merely, that Hamilton did everything, but that 
no one else did anything, the author in his wide circuit 
of disparagement, gratuitouslv assailed Mr. Reed. This 



12 



attack was, like every one of the kind, wantonly made, and 
in the absence, very well known, at a vast distance on the 
other side of the globe, of the only person who could 
repel it. How it was subsequently, on one point, met, 
the reader may see in the correspondence in 1859, ^^~ 
tween Mr. Hamilton and me, recently published, in 
which he was content to rest, as he does still, under a di- 
red charge of having fabricated the date, and im-agined 
the contents of a letter, and of having mis-quoted one 
document, and mis-direded another, (New York Histor- 
ical Magazine, December, 1866.) Though the main 
topic of Mr. Hamilton's ill-natured comment is the cor- 
respondence in 1776, with Charles Lee, like all the other 
purveyors of this sort of defamatory rubbish, he fell 
back upon the reserve of the Cadwalader pamphlet. 

In 1863, it appeared again, 'by subscription,' stealthily 
of course, and though got up at great expense, and, 
printed in Albany, no place of publication, or pub- 
lisher's or printer's name is to be found on its pages, 
and no one has been willing to acknowledge an agency 
in it. 

The "subscription" list for this re-issue must be a 
curiosity, but like every thing else, it is studiously con- 
cealed. I ascertained who the three individuals were 
who aded as a sort of 'Committee of Publication,' but 
the ambush of the other 'subscribers' was perfect. This 
re-print is catalogued at the Franklin library of this city 
as 'The gift of the Publisher.' On my inquiring who 



13 

this was, the librarian informed me either that he was 
not at liberty to say, or that the person did not wish his 
name known. This did not at all surprise me. 

Last, in the catalogue of these resurredionists of calum- 
ny, is Mr. George Bancroft, in the ninth volume of 
his History of the Revolution. I had reason to look 
for a different treatment of the subjeft at his hands, at 
least so far as this, that I imagined, in the apparent 
friendliness which existed, he would have given me an 
opportunity of criticism and explanation before he ad- 
duced evidence and expressed opinions so singularly 
hostile. But Mr. Bancroft is the judge as to his own 
condudl. There v/ere indications in his eighth volume 
of a disposition to disparage the services of Mr. Reed, 
but as they were ambiguous, and the book came to me 
*with the Author's regards,' I did not think it worth 
while to notice them. Not so, this ninth volume. It 
fairly bristles with calumny. Whenever, and it is quite 
frequently, Mr. Reed's name is alluded to, there is a 
sneer, or an imputation. He is a 'traitor,' (p. 229) a 
'deserter,' (228) a 'coward,' (172) a 'pretender,' (106). 
In short he, and General Greene — the latter in a milder 
form — are throughout, the chief objects of Mr. Bancroft's 
vituperative rhetoric. I have sought in vain to account 
for this mischievous animosity, and am driven to attri- 
bute it to the infection of the poisonous politics of this 
our day, which have acidulated tempers and dispositions 
quite as sweet as Mr. Bancroft's and Mr. John C. Ham- 



14 



ilton's. Be all this as it may, opinions thus expressed, 
and accusations so barbed, and venomous, l am com- 
pelled to notice. I shall consider them fairly. So far 
as they come directly within the course of my vindica- 
tion, they shall be noticed in the text, and when they are 
aside from it, in notes. No one of these resuscitated 
slanders shqll be intentionally omitted, and, if I use lan- 
guage of decision, let it be understood, there is abun- 
dant excuse in the grossness of the provocation. 

That the reader may have a glimpse of the animus of 
Mr. Bancroft, and that attention may not, by and by, be 
diverted from the strid line of discussion, I pause here 
to refer to the manner in which Mr. Reed's name is 
introduced by him. It is an illustration of Mr. Ban- 
croft's spirit throughout. Speaking of the negociation 
with Lord Howe, in 1776, with the details of which 
every student is familiar, Mr. Bancroft says: 

"Reed, who was already thoroughly sick of the contest, 
thought 'the overture ought not to be rejeded,' and through 
Robert Morris, he offered 'most cheerfully to take such a pS-t 
as his situation and abilities would admit." (page 40.) 

The "quotation marks" are Mr. Bancroft's, and the 
reader will be surprised to learn that there is no such 
thmg in the letter from which the quotation pretends to 
be made. Mr. Reed neither said nor hinted that Lord 
Howe's overture "ought not to be rejecfted," nor did he 
offer "to take such a part" as is suggested. His lan- 
guage in the letter to Mr. Morris, is this: Mr. Ban- 
croft adually mutilating the last sentence. 



15 

"If it, (the communication) can be improved in any res- 
pec?!:, either to give time, or discover the true powers these 
Commissioners have, or in any other way, I shall most cheer- 
fully take such a part as my situation and abilities will admit, and 
as may be diredied." 

As to "the rejecflion of the overture" Mr. Bancroft's 
perversion is still more flagrant. Mr. Reed says: 

"The Declaration of Independence is a new and very strong 
objection to entering into any negociation inconsistent with that 
idea. But I fancy there are numbers, and some of them firm in 
the interests of America, who would think an overture ought 
not to be reje6ted, and, if it could be improved into a negociation 
which could secure the two points mentioned above, would think 
the blood and treasure well spent." 

This is the only reference to the "overture" or its 
"rejediion" in this letter or in any other, from first to 
last, and certainly is that which Mr. Bancroft alludes to. 
Mr. Reed adds, and, with this before him, Mr. Bancroft 
undertakes to say "he was thoroughly sick of the 
contest." 

"I have no idea from any thing I have seen or can learn that 
if we should give the General and Admiral a full and fair hear- 
ing, the proposition would amount to any thing short of uncon- 
ditional submission, but it may be worth considering whether 
that once known and all prospe6l of securing American lib- 
erty in that way being closed, it would not have a happy effeS: to 
unite us into one chosen band, resolved to be free or perish in 
the attempt." 

This is the herald, as it were, of a series of defama- 
tory statements, each of which I pledge myself to show 
to be unworthy of credit. Mr. George Bancroft has 



i6 

chosen to array himself with the persistent defamers of 
my ancestor, and has a position before the public as an 
ambitious writer of History, which makes it my duty to 
break the silence I have so long and so resolutely 
maintained. I propose now to reply fully to these con- 
glomerate calumnies, and to submit such a defence of 
General Reed as VN^ill, I trust, put them to rest at once, 
and forever, 

I begin of course at the ^^origo mali^' the controversy 
of the last Century. 

The Cadwalader controversy was in the year 1782-3, 
more than six years after the incidents in which it is 
supposed to have had its origin, are said to have occurred. 
In determining the relative attitude of the parties to 
this unfortunate difficulty, I have no professions of 
absolute impartiality to make, while I do not distrust 
my ability to do justice to Mr. Cadwalader, and to see 
defects of character, or temper, or conduct in my ances- 
tor. With due allowance for strong filial feeling, it 
seems to me the subject may, without much effort, be 
considered in a very temperate spirit. I mean to try so 
to treat it. 

General Cadwalader was a Philadelphian by birth, and 
accordino; to the best information I have, a man of 
easy fortune. In the patriotic movements at the begin- 
ning of the colonial troubles, he took an active part. 
He, and his brother Lambert, were members of the 
Provincial Convention of 1775, and both held commis- 



17 

s'ons in the military corps organized by Pennsylvania, 
in 1776. They were brave, high spirited men. Colonel 
Lambert Cadwalader was made prisoner at Fort Wash- 
ington, and never afterwards entered active service. In 
the campaign of 1776, John Cadwalader commanded a 
Pennsylvania regiment, but was not, I believe, in the 
field till December of that year, v/hen he was stationed 
with a body of about fifteen or eighteen hundred men, at 
Bristol. He remained Vv'ith the army till after the battle 
of Princeton. In January, 1777, Washington recom- 
mended him for military promotion. In February, 
Congress appointed him one of the new Brigadier Gen- 
erals, a post which he declined accepting, as "he con- 
ceived the war was near a conclusion." He never was 
regularly in service afterwards. In the winter of 1777-8 
Cadwalader and Reed joined Washington, as volunteers, 
and were with him, counselling and aiding in the opera- 
tions near Philadelphia. In Decem.ber, 1777, on being 
offered a post in the Pennsylvania line, Cadwalader re- 
fused to accept it, and in June, or July, 1778, fought his 
duel with Conway. The two Philadelphia soldiers were 
again volunteers v/ith Washington at Monmouth. In 
September, Congress, at the instance of a Committee, of 
which Mr. Reed vv'as Chairman, offered Cadwalader a 
Cavalry command; this also, he, then residing with his 
family in Maryland, declined. Except a short period 
of service in the Maryland Legislature, he never, after- 
wards, was other than a private man. This is, I believe. 



I. 



i8 

a fair summary of General Cadwalader's services. During 
the greater part of the War, he resided on his estate in 
Maryland, occasionally visiting Philadelphia, to share in 
the fierce political broils which so long distraded this 
community. 

Of Mr. Reed's career, from July 1775, when he 
joined Washington on his v/ay to Cambridge, till hi3 
term of office as President of Pennsylvania ended in 
178 1, I do not feel it necessary to say a word. The 
record of his public services is before the world, and, 
this, certainly may be said of it, that there was not a 
year or a day, in which, for the public cause, he was not 
making some effort or sacrifice, and earning from his 
countrymen, and especially his fellow-soldiers, gratitude 
in its strongest and most sincere expression. Though, 
like Cadv/alader, he declined Continental rank, unlike 
him, he thought it a duty to forego speculative objec- 
tions to a frame of local government, and to take office 
and discharge public duty under the Constitution of 
Pennsylvania. When appointed Chief Justice in 1777, 
he declined office; when elefted to the Presidency in 
1778, he accepted it, and Washington "very sincerely" 
rejoiced. Who was right, and who wrong, no one 
now doubts. AVe know v/nat judgment was formed and 
expressed by Mr. Reed's contemporaries who had a deep 
interest in the question ; as I have said, by Washing- 
ton, and by Wayne, and Greene, and Henry Lee. The 
student of our history will, we think, agree in the opin- 



19 

ion which has elsewhere been expressed, that it was v/ell 
for the general cause, that at the most critical periods of 
the war, in 1779, 1780, and 178 1, when the heaviest 
burthens rested on the Middle Colonies, a man so full 
of energy, and intelleftual resources, as Mr. Reed, was 
in Executive office in Pennsylvania. The more this 
period of our history is studied, the brighter will his re- 
cord be. It was Pennsylvania that nobly sustained the 
general cause, and he was the guiding and animating 
spirit of her executive councils. It was a poor return 
for all he did and sacrificed, to be at the end, assailed 
by those who, while he was toiling and wearing away 
a feeble constitution in public service, were living in 
seclusion and luxury. 

The year 1782 found Reed and Cadwalader private 
citizens. The state of local affairs I cannot better des- 
cribe than I already have in the Memoir which has been 
given to the public. The scene was a very sad one. 

On the 7th of September, 1782, there appeared in 
the columns of the "Independent Gazetteer," the organ 
of the Anti-Constitutional party of Pennsylvania, the 
following publication, dated the 3d.: 

I. Was not General R — d, in December, 177.6, (then A 1 



G 1 of the continental army), sent by General Washington 

to the commanding officer at Bristol, with orders relative to a 
general attack, intended to be made on the enemy's post at 
Trenton and those below on the 25th, at night ? 

2. Two or three days before the intended attack did not Gen- 
eral R — d say, in conversation with the said commanding officer, 



20 

at his quarters, that our affairs looked very desperate, and that 
we were only making a sacrifice of ourselves ? 

3. Did he not also say, that the time of General Howe's 
proclamation offering pardon and protection to persons who 
should come in before the ist of January, 1777, was nearly ex- 
pired ; and that Galloway, the Allen's and others had gone over 
and availed themselves of the pardon and proteition offered by 
the said proclamation ? 

4. Did not he, General R — d, at the same time say, that he 
had a family and ought to take care of them ; and that he did 
not understand following the wretched remains of a broken 
army ? 

5. Did he not likewise say to the said commanding officer, 
that his brother (then a colonel or lieutenant colonel of militia) 
was at Burlington v/ith his family, and that he had advised him 
to remain there, and if the enemy took possession of the town, 
to take a protection and swear allegiance ? It is well for Amer- 
ica that very few gene-ral officers have reasoned in this manner ; 
if they had. General Howe would have made an easy conquest of 
the United States. And it is very obvious, that officers of high 
rank with such sentiments, can have no just pretensions to pat- 
riotism or public virtue; and can by no means be worthy of any 
post of honour or place of trust where the liberties and interests 
of the people are immediately concerned. 

BRUTUS. 
Philadelphia^ September 3, 1782. 

This was an anonymous publication, and no one ever 
avowed the authorship of it. General Cadwalader ex- 
pressly disclaimed it. The newspapers of the day at- 
tribute it to Do(5lor Benjamin Rush, and, as he subse- 
quently made himself a chief witness in support of the 
accusation against Mr. Reed, was bitterly hostile to 
him, and was addided to this mode of secret assault; 



21 

there is reason for attributing to his busy pen, the initia- 
tion of this wretched controversy. The "Brutus" of 
1782, after involving two gentlemen in angry dispute, 
never came from his ambush. So far as he is concerned, 
it was a stab in the dark. 

Instantly, on its publication, Mr. Reed addressed a 
note to General Cadwalader, enquiring if he were the 
author, and asserting, without, however, any personal 
imputation, the falsehood of the hinted accusation. To 
this, on the loth of September, Cadwalader replied, de- 
n)ing that he was "Brutus," but re-asserting the charges 
in a form quite as offensive. On the nth, the follow- 
ing card appeared in the journals of the day: 

"To THE Public" 

Satiated with public business, and the honours which are sup- 
posed to attend it ; no candidate for office or appointment of any 
kind, it was my wish to live a private and peaceable citizen. 
But it seems the sacrifice of no small portion of my time and 
fortune is not sufficient, without a sacrifice of character also. 
A set of men in this city, uninjured and unprovoked by me, are 
weekly pouring forth some abuse under anonymous signatures, 
and in a late paper it is insinuated under a number of queries 
that in the year 1776 I meditated an abandonment of the cause 
of my country, and desertion to the enemy and communicated 
such intention to the commanding officer at Bristol. I do not 
hesitate to pronounce it an infamous falsehood, and with sin- 
cerity and upon the honour of a gentleman, solemnly declare no 
such conversation as alluded to in these queries ever passed, of 
which, I hope in a few days to exhibit the most satisfactory 
proof, the nature of the case admits of. 

Joseph Reed. 



2 2 

After a sharp personal correspondence, Mr. Reed re- 
deemed the pledge of submitting his case to the public 
judgment, and in November, 1782, published a pamph- 
let with which every historical student is familiar. It 
has been but once re-printed in the long interval of 
eighty-five years, and but for the fear of expanding this 
publication too much, I should be glad to re-produce it, 
and let an injured man, as it were from the grave, speak 
for himself. I am conscious of no little pride in the 
earnest eloquence and high literary ability of this defence. 
My vindication is really supplementary. In the early 
part of 1783, the Cadwalader pamphlet appeared in reply 
to Mr. Reed. Before considering it, and the evidence 
it is supposed to contain, as I shall do fully, and, I hope 
conclusively, I desire to give to the world some con- 
temporaneous testimony, of the good and brave men of 
those days of trial, as to the merits of the controversy as 
presented by the parties themselves. I have in my 
possession many letters of this kind. It would extend 
this publication too much, were I to print them all. I 
therefore content myself with two — from a gallant soldier 
of the Revolution, him whom Washington most cher- 
ished and trusted — the Marcellus of our infant story, 
whose friendship for Mr. Reed, from the time they met 
within the lines of Cambridge, never abated nor was inter- 
rupted. With any fair-minded man, it would conclude all 
question as to Mr. Reed's fidelity to the cause of his coun- 
try. I make extra(51:s from the originals in my possession. 



^3 

General Greene to Charles Pettit. 

Charleston^ April 3, 1 783. 

* * * I have seen Governor Reed's publication. I think it 
an excellent performance, and it is much admired. On almost 
every question, I could give the fullest confirmation, so far as my 
opinion can have u'eight. The attempt to traduce him, as hav- 
ing a design to go over to the enemy, is truly wicked. General 
Cadwalader never had such a thought. I am persuaded nothing 
but party rage could induce him to countenance such an insinua- 
tion. No man in America had so good an opportunity to know 
Governor Reed's sentim.er.ts and intentions as I had, and I know 
at the time they urge suspicions, he was urging the enterprise at 
Trenton, as he savs. And as to the arguments founded upon 
his not taking the oaths, they are as ridiculous as they are wicked. 
He was opposed to the Constitution, and in hopes of getting some 
alterations in it was the reason why he did not take the oaths to 
the state. Was there not a great part of the principal men in the 
state in the same predicament ? Their objeilion was not to the 
cause but the Constitution. It was my advice to him and Gen- 
eral Cadwalader, both, to take up the Constitution as it was •, and 
as the people would have more conhdence in them, they might 
form it as they pleased. A measure of this sort would have re- 
conciled and united all parties, and I am persuaded this was Gov- 
ernor Reed's intention in taking upon him the charge of govern- 
ment. We had frequent conversations together, to this effedl:. 
The abuse and scurrility thrown out against him, betray so much 
rancour and malice, that it destroys itself. Fie will live beloved 
and respected by every good man and friend to his country, in 
spite of all they can say to his prejudice. His good sense and 
natural resources will support him, when his enemies shall not 
dare to show their heads. '" * * '■' 

On the 23rd of April, 1783, Greene wrote direftly to 
Mr. Reed. 

Headquarters^ April 23, 1 783. 
I thank you for the pamphlet you sent m.e. I had read it be- 
fore, and have the pleasure to assure you it is much admired. 



24 

Everybody reads it with pleasure and conviftion. I wish I had 
been in Philadelphia. I would have given you all the support 
my little influence might have had. I am better acquainted with 
the history of your condu6l than any other person. The insinu- 
ation of your intention to desert over to the enemy is infamous, 
and I am sure General Cadwalader never entertained such an 
idea, nor would have asserted such a thing, but from the influences 
of party rage. Indeed, I think Philadelphia has something in- 
fatuating in its air. No chara6ler escapes abuse, and the inno- 
cent as well as the guilty are all arraigned as party or spleen di- 
rects. Good God ! what will this lead to. I would sooner be 
an honest plowman than a public officer upon such terms.* 

Again in November, 1783, months after the Cadwal- 
ader publication, when Mr. Reed visited England, 
Greene, standing faithfully by his ancient friend, wrote 
to Lafayette. 

Philadelphia^ A^ov. 9, 1783. 
"Dear Marquis: 

This will be handed you by my good friend. Governor Reed, 
whose merit and a6live zeal, you are perfeftly well acquainted 
with. Nor, can you be ignorant of the ungenerous measures 
which have been taken here to lessen his public estimation. 
Every man who has the pleasure of his acquaintance must feel 
an honest indignation at the unmerited treatment he has met 
with ; and a pleasing satisfaction that his abilities will triumph 
over party and fa6lion." 

To Rochambeau, and D'Estaing, he wrote in the same 
strain of earnest affection. Mr. Reed's innrm health 

* This letter, with the exception of one passage, was published in 
my Life of Reed, vol. 2, page 395. The passage relating to General 
Cadwalader was omitted, from the feeling v/hich, throughout, controlled 
me, of trying to avoid giving pain. 



25 

prevented him from visiting the continent and delivering 
these letters ; and, for this reason, they have remained in 
my possession. The student of our history need not be 
toki how valuable this voluntary testimony of General 
Greene is. It was his fortune to pass through the war 
without a reproach. He shared in the early reverses and 
final triumphs of tlie Revolution. He had, throughout, 
Washington's affectionate confidence. He was actively 
engaged in the military operations on the Delaware, in 
1776, and, knowing better than any one else, Mr. Reed's 
conduct, at the moment when he was charged with dis- 
affection pronounced the insinuation 'infamous.' Is it, 
I pause to ask, this fidelity to Mr. Reed which now at- 
tracts Mr. Bancroft's animosity to General Greene — or 
is it that he gained his highest laurels on fields of south- 
ern victory, and, leaving New England, sought a south- 
ern home, and died a southern man.? 

Greene in another letter to Mr. Reed, in 1782, said: 
'The ingratitude you have been treated with by a party 
in Philadelphia, and by some of the officers of the army, 
serves but to disgust me with public life, and as a lesson 
of the inconstancy of human creatures. The State of 
South Carolina has treated me very differently. They 
have voted me their thanks unanimously, accompanied 
with a vote vesting me with an estate of 10.000 guineas. 
No people, I believe, ever felt a stronger impulse of 
gratitude. Commissioners are appointed to make the 
purchase. This, with the shattered remains of my little 



26 

fortune, will lay the foundation for a decent support in 
the decline of life. The measure is new in the politics 
of America, and it will soon become public. Please let 
me know what animadversions are made upon it, partic- 
ularly by the delegates and people of New England.' 

What the contemporaneous public thought of these 
controversies may be inferred from the fad that, in the 
short remnant of Mr. Reed's life, his close and confiden- 
tial relations with the best and purest men of our coun- 
try, and especially of Pennsylvania, continued unimpaired; 
abroad, with Mr. Adams, and Mr. Jay, and Mr. Laurens, 
at home with George Bryan and Jonathan Dickinson 
Sergeant and Clement Biddle, and James Hutchinson, 
and John Bayard, and Jared Ingersoll, and especially, 
with William Bradford, (afterwards Washington's Attor- 
ney General,) whom Mr. Reed drew from retirement to 
place in high position, and who repaid the kindness by 
an affedionate friendship which never intermitted. 

After the Cadwalader pamphlet, Mr. Reed was chosen 
by the Assembly of Pennsylvania to condud, at Trenton, 
the Wyoming controversy, as the colleague of Mr. Brad- 
ford, Mr. Sergeant, and Mr. Wilson, and on the i6th 
of April, 1784, the following minute of the Assembly, 
attests the public estimation, in which, to the latest hour 
of his life, in spite of all the defamation which party 
fury had hurled at him, he was held. One of the sure 
re-adions in politics had occured, since 1782. The pro- 
scriptive 'Republicans,' such was the party name then, 



27 

had been defeated at the polls, and the 'Constitution- 
alists' were again in the ascendant. 

^'Agreeably to the order of the day the house proceeded to the 
election of Delegates to represent the State in the Congress of 
the United States for the ensuing year; and the ballots being 
taken it appeared that the Honourable Joseph Reed, Cadvvala- 
der Morris, William Montgomery, Joseph Gardner and William 
Henry, of Lancaster, Esquires, were duly elected. ' I have,' 
wrote the Speaker of the House, ' further to express the earnest 
desire of the House, that you repair as soon as possible to Tren- 
ton, to meet with Congress, that this State may be represented 
in that honourable body." 

But, as I have elsewhere said, this honour, the just 
reward of public service, came too late. The hand of 
death was upon him. In December, 1783, his will is 
dated, and, there, will be found the almost dying words 
with which he repelled these dark accusations. 

*■*■ My situation in life has made me the objecSl of much envy, cal- 
umny and reproach ; I therefore, on this solemn occasion, declare 
that any charge of infidelity to my country, correspondence with 
the enemy, injustice to the State, or individuals, which has been 
made against me, is false. I served my country with fidelity, 
and usefulness, as General Washington's and General Greene's 
numerous letters will testify. I served Pennsylvania, in partic- 
ular, to the very great injury of my family, but with equal integ- 
rity, disclaiming all offers and opportunities of serving myself. 
If the State will allow for the depreciation of my salary during 
my administration, and also <£i93 which I forfeited as a purcha- 
ser of a State Island lot, but which was never exa6led from any 
other purchaser who failed in payment, I shall be obliged to it. 
I desire that there may be no pompous funeral, but quite plain. 



28 

as nearly like those in 1776 as possible, and to be laid by my 
wife. If I am of consequence enough for a funeral sermon, I 
desire it may be preached by my old friend and instructor Mr. 
Duffield, in Arch street, the next Sunday after my funeral. And 
now I close this serious business and shall meet death with com- 
posure, having no other concern than for my children, whose 
interests I have too much negledted for the service of the public ; 
however I recommend them to the care of Providence and the 
kindness of friends." 

Mr. Reed died in March, 1785. "I never" wrote 
General Richard Butler, "saw so great a number of peo- 
ple at one funeral in America." All orders, classes and 
parties, united in paying him the last honours. The 
officers of the army; the Militia of the city; the Assem- 
bly and Executive Council, v/ith the President, Mr. 
Dickinson, (once a political adversary,) with a large con- 
course, followed him to the grave. 

It is this man, thus honoured to the last hour of his 
life, and thus, in death lamented, whom, I, his grandson, 
am called upon to vindicate against a charge of deep dis- 
honour, suggested whilst he was living, and revived by 
the busy artificers of slander, eighty years after he died. 

This vindication I proceed to make: 

The pamphlet of 1783 contains two charges, one ex- 
pressly made, and one, very directly insinuated. 

I. That in December, 1776, Mr. Reed, in extreme 
despondency, thought of making his peace with the ene- 
my by accepting the terms offered by their Commission- 
ers, and, so said to General Cadwalader. 



29 

2. That, with that view, he entered into a correspon- 
dence of a treasonable charader with Count Donop, the 
Hessian Commander of the outposts in New Jersey. 

As to the first, it will be observed that the only dired. 
evidence adduced is that of General Cadwalader himself, 
his double brother-in-law, Philemon Dickerson, John 
Nixon, and Doctor Benjamin Rush. All the others, 
Jacob Rush, Joseph Ellis, Davenport, Bradford, David 
Lenox, and Nichols, merely tell hearsay gossip — what 
other people told them. How little value should be at- 
tached to such testimony, will appear from a contradic- 
tion, now for the first time in print, I am able to give 
one of them — Mr. Bradford. Bradford's certificate, pub- 
lished by General Cadwalader, is this: 

"These are to certify, that, in December 1776, and January 
1777, I, the subscriber, was Major of the second battalion of 
Philadelphia Militia, whereof John Bayard was Colonel, and then 
lay at Bristol, and part of the time opposite Trenton, on the Penn- 
sylvania side. That while we lay at Bristol, Joseph Reed, Esq., 
joined us ; that, during his being there and near Treriton, he often 
went out for intelligence, as Colonel Bayard told me, over to 
Burlington, in which place the enemy frequently were ; that, 
being absent frequently all day and all night, I as frequently en- 
quired what could become of General Reed. Colonel Bayard 
often answered me, he feared, he had left us and gone over to 
the enemy. One time in particular, being absent two days and 
two nights, if not three nights, Colonel Bayard came to me with 
great concern, and said he was fully persuaded General Reed 
was gone to join the enemy and make his peace, I asked how 
he could possibly think so of a man who had taken so early a 
part and had acted steadily. Pie replied, he was persuaded it 



30 

was so, for he knew the General thought it was all over, and 
that we could not stand against the enemy, and at the same time 
wept much. I endeavoured all I could to drive such notions 
from him, but he was so fully persuaded that he had left us and 
gone over to the enemy, that arguing about the matter was 
only loss of time. Colonel Bayard often making mention, that 
he knew his sentiments much better than I did. After being 
absent two or three nights. General Reed returned, and I never 
saw more joy expressed than was by Colonel Bayard ; he decla- 
ring to me he was glad General Reed was returned, for he was 
fully convinced, in his own mind, that he was gone over to the 

enemy.* 

William Br.adford. 
March 15, 1783. 



* Mr., or Major Bradford, whp gives this certificate, was William 
Bradford, the elder. His two sons were Thomas, a printer and pub- 
lisher, and William, Attorney General of Pennsylvania, in 1780, after- 
wards Judge of the Supreme Court, and at the time of his death in 
1795, Attorney General of the United States in the Washington admin- 
istration, Mr. Reed's intimate friend, one of the executors of his 
will and guardian of his children. He wrote the laudatory inscrip- 
tion on Mr. Reed's tombstone. In Mr. Bradford's will, now before 
me, dated in 1788, this passage occurs: "In remembrance of the friend- 
ship and patronage I experienced from Joseph Reed, Esquire, in his 
lifetime, I give and devise to such of his children, as shall he alive at 
the time of my decease, and to their heirs, a traft of land in Northum- 
berland County, containing 1005 acres, granted to me by patent; also, 
the sum of £1000, payable in certificates, at the discretion of my ex- 
ecutors, and the farther sum of £150, payable in one year after my de- 
cease." This, and all other of Mr. Bradford's testamentary dispositions, 
were rendered nugatory by the adjudication in the well known and re- 
ported case of Bradford vs. Boudinot, 2 Dallas' Reports, 266, 2 Teates, 
170, in which Dodtor Rush was the chief witness against the wills-. 
Mr. Thomas Bradford, who inherited, as heir at law, belonged to a dif- 
ferent school of politics, was the intimate friend of Dodlor Rush, and 
the printer of the Cadwalader pamphlet. He lived to a very advanced 
age, dying in 1837. The brothers were not on friendly terms. 



3^ 

Among Mr. Reed's papers I find the following 
affidavit, which speaks for itself, being that of a man, 
whose high character in public and private life is well 
known in this community. A more emphatic and pre- 
cise denial could hardly be framed. It is dated the 5th of 
December, 1783 — of course after the Cadwalader pam- 
phlet appeared. 

"Whereas Mr. William Bradford, Senior, heretofore a Major 
in the Second Battalion of Philadelphia Militia, under my com- 
mand, hath, in a pamphlet published by General Cadwalader, cer- 
tified that I frequently com.municated to him suspicions of the 
fidelity of General Reed, in the winter of the year 1776, and 
apprehension's of his being gone to the enemy; that he despaired 
of the American cause, and that I knew his sentiments on the 
subject. I do hereby declare that I never entertained a doubt of 
the fidelity of General Reed, or the least suspicion of his intend- 
ing to join the enemy ; and further, that in the most private and 
intimate conversations, he never expressed to me a sentiment of 
that kind or discovered that despondency which would lead me to 
draw such a conclusion. I well remember my often expressing 
my concern and anxiety at his and Colonel Cox's frequent visits 
to Burlington, and my apprehensions that they would either be 
betrayed by the inhabitants or surprised and taken by the enemy. 
I expostulated v/ith him on this head more than once. His an- 
swer was to me, that he knew the people and could depend upon 
them, and that our situation required constant and daily intelli- 
gence. My frequent mention of the uneasiness I was under on 
this occasion, may have been misunderstood by Major Bradford. 

The justice due to a much injured character has led me to 
give this counter certificate." John Bayard.* 

* "John Bayard, chairman of the Committee of Inspection, for the 
County of Philadelphia, a patriot of singular purity of chara6ter and 



3^' 

Still, there remains what may be called the positive 
testimony, and to it, I dired my attention; and, first, to 
that of General Cadwalader himself, which it is best to 
give in his own words: 

" I had occasion to speak with you, a few days before the in- 
tended attack on the 26th of December, 1776, and requested 
you to retire with me to a private room at my quarters — the 
business related to intelligence — a general conversation, however, 
soon took place concerning the state of public affairs, and after run- 
ning over a number of topics ; — in an agony of mind, and despair 
strongly expressed in your countenance and tone of voice, you 
spoke your apprehensions concerning the event of the contest ; 
that our affairs looked very desperate, and we were only making 
a sacrifice of ourselves ; — that the time of General Howe's offer- 
ing pardon and protection to persons who should com.e in before 
the first of January, 1777, was nearly expired ; and that Galloway, 
the Aliens, and others, had gone over and availed themselves of 
the pardon and protection oftered by said proclamation ; — that 
you had a family and- ought to take care of them, and that you 
did not understand following the wretched remains (or remnants) 
of a broken army ; that your brother, (then Colonel, or Lieuten- 
ant Colonel of the militia— but you say of five months' men, 
(which is not material) was then at Burlington with his family, 
and that you had advised him to remain there and if the enemy 
took possession of the town, to take a protection and swear alle- 
giance, and in so doing he would be perfectly justifiable." 

If General Cadwalader be understood to say that in 
December, 1776, before the success at Trenton, Mr. 



disinterestedness, personally brave, pensive (_J/V), earnest and devout." 
Bancroft, vol. %, page 385. 



33 

Reed, in confidential intercourse v/ith him, was despon- 
dent as to the prospedts of the Americans, it is certainly 
not worth while to dispute it. There was despondency, 
deep despondency, and the highest in military rank felt 
it; and to their families and friends expressed it. 
"General Reed," says "Mr. Nixon," on my enquiring 
the news, and what he thought of affairs in general, said 
that appearances were very gloomy and unfavourable; 
that he was fearful or apprehensive the business was 
nearly settled, or the game almost up, or words to the 
same effedt.* That all this, or some of it, may have 
been said, is quite probable, for we find that on the i8th 
of December, Washington wrote to his brother: "Be- 
tween you and me, I think our affairs are in a very bad 
condition. In a word if every nerve is not strained to 
recruit the new army with all possible speed, I think the 
game is nearly upT "Some effed:ual remedy," wrote 
Mr. Morris to Congress, on December 23d, "must be 
applied to this evil, (the depreciation of the currency) 
or the game will be up;' the very words which General 
Cadwalader and his friend Mr. Nixon, thought it trea- 
sonable for Mr. Reed to utter. 

But General Cadwalader, in 1783, meant to say more. 
He meant to charge Mr. Reed with more than transient 
despondency, when, in 1778, angered at the prosecution 

* In Mr. Nixon's certificate these disjunftives are all in italks, indi- 
cating an intense uncertainty as to what was reallv said. 

3 



34 

of his friend, Mr. William Hamilton, who, with Car- 
lisle and Roberts, was tried for high treason, he, for the 
first time, talked of treasonable defedion. "Though 
living in the closest intimacy," says Mr. Clymer, "I 
never (before) heard you drop the most distant hint of 
any defedion of Mr. Reed, of which, I myself, had no 
suspicion." He meant to charge much more than des- 
pondency, when a year later, he furnished Arnold, on his 
trial for official misdemeanour, of which he was convided, 
and at the very time a secret traitor, with a weapon of 
calumny to be hurled at his prosecutor. He meant to 
charge cowardly disaffection, and it is this charge which 
must be met. It cannot be evaded. It ought not to be un- 
derstated; for, while I do not condescend to ask a stricter 
rule of evidence, in view of the enormity of the imputed 
crime, I have a right to infer from the subsequent re^ 
lations of the accuser and the accused, that the former 
did not believe a charge so gross had any foundation. 
There is not a trace of General Cadwalader having 
breathed this accusation until the Treason trials of 1778. 
The only attempt to show that he ever whispered it be- 
fore, is in Colonel Hamilton's letter of the 14th of 
March, 1783, in which he says that after an effort of 
memory "he thinks" the matter was mentioned to him, 
sometime in the campaign of 1777, and, with great 
caution, he adds: "It is the part of candour to observe 
that I am not able to distinguish with certainty whether 



35 

the recolledlion I have of these words arises from the 
strong impression made by your declaration at the time, 
or from having heard them more than once repeated 
within a year past." 

The secret thus kept was a perilous one, to both par- 
ties. 'Mr. Reed avowed his intention to desert to the 
enemy at the most critical position of affairs, in terms 
so distind: that I was on the point of arresting him, and, 
this, I kept secret from all, including the Commander-in- 
Chief, to whom I was bound to reveal it. I kept it se- 
cret from motives of expediency and in the exercise of 
discretion which I considered advantageous.' This, 
almost in terms, is what General Cadwalader said two, or 
three, or seven years after. And this being so, may we 
not ask, why was it ever told ? Why was it put in cir- 
culation in 1778, or in 1779, ^^ ^" 1782, gloomy and 
critical periods of our story ? Why was it kept back 
till party asperities and political bitterness called it forth ? 
Why was it talked of in coffee houses and clubs, as 
General Cadwalader tries to prove it was ? Why was it 
blurted out in anger on the trial of a cause when Mr. 
Reed was merely discharging a professional duty ? And 
why was it, at last, "conveyed" as a weapon of offence 
to a man like Arnold, and, brandished in the light of day 
by a mercenary, jobbing traitor.? Does not it look as if 
it might have been an after thought, and that if Gen- 
eral Cadwalader, in 1783, believed what he said, it was 
through some peculiar mental process which clouds the 



36 

memory and makes an angry man think he remembers 
what never occurred. It is not the first time and will 
not be the last, when men have chafed themselves into 
delusions. 

Arnold's language on his trial in January, 1780, was 
this: 

"Conscious of my own innocence, and the unworthy 
methods taken to injure me, I can with boldness say to 
my persecutors in general, and to the chief of them in 
particular, that in the hour of danger, when the affairs of 
America wore a gloomy asped, when our illustrious 
General was retreating through New Jersey with a hand- 
ful of men, I did not propose to my associates basely to 
quit the General and sacrifice the cause of my country 
to my personal safety, by going over to the enemy and 
making my peace." 

Mr. Reed, in his pamphlet of 1782, says: "When Ar- 
nold's insinuation dropped, a smile of contempt mani- 
fested itself throughout the room." And Mr. Sparks 
well remarks: "The boastfulness and malignity of 
these declarations are obvious enough, but their con- 
summate hypocrisy can be understood only by knowing 
the faft, that, at the moment they were uttered, Arnold 
had been eight months in secret correspondence with 
the enemy, and was prepared, if not resolved, when the 
first opportunity should offer to desert and betray his 
country. No suspicions of such a purpose being enter- 
tained, these effusions were regarded as the offspring of 



37 

vanity, and the natural acerbity of his temper. They 
now afford a remarkable evidence of the duplicity of his 
charader, and of the art with which he concealed the 
blackest schemes of wickedness under the guise of pre- 
tended virtue and boast of immaculate innocence."''' 

And now, simply hinting incidentally these general 
reasons for incredulity, I proceed to show that it was an 
after thought, and that, in December 1776, General 
Cadwalader did not think Mr. Reed unfaithful to his 
country, a traitor in heart, in his own words, *'a base 
man who had once raised his foot to take a step" that 
ought to have consigned him to the scaffold. This is 
plain language, for, as I have said, I do not desire to 
understate anything on the part of the accuser. 

Let me recall the reader's attention to the familiar 
story of those hours of trial. There is no precision in 
General Cadwalader's dates. The perilous conversa- 
tion, he says, took place "a few days before the intended 
attack, on the 26th of December, 1776." Dodor Rush, 
the other witness, fixes the date of his conversation '*a 
few days" before the battle of Trenton, though, as he 
says, it occurred on a ride to "Headquarters near New- 



'^'Life and Treason of Arnold, page 141. "If,' wrote Washington to 
Reed on the 20th of November, 1780, 'if Arnold, by the words in his 
letter to his wife,' 'I am treated with the greatest politeness by General 
Washington and the officers of the Army, who bitterly execrate Mr. 
Reed and the Council, for their villainous attempt to injure me,' 
• meant to comprehend me in the latter part of the expression, he as- 
serted an absolute falsehood." 



38 

town," it must have been before the i8th, for, then, 
"Headquarters were near the Falls of Trenton." It 
is to be presumed that the pretended date was within 
the eight or ten days before the ■26th of December, and 
so I shall consider it, in the view I desire to present of 
Cadwalader's relations to Reed, when, and after this 
secret infamy was said to be revealed. 

They were at Bristol, with a small body of militia and 
a few Continental troops; the enemy in unknown force 
in front, on the eastern side of the Delaware; a small 
body of Americans under Griffin, at or near Mount 
Holly; Washington about ten miles above, meditating 
an attack; and Philadelphia, panic-stricken and disaffect- 
ed below. Then it was that Washington communica- 
ted to Reed and Cadwalader, the details of his proposed 
attack. "For Heaven's sake," said he, writing to Reed, 
"keep this to yourself, as the discovery may prove fatal 
to us." Cadwalader and Reed had concerted a plan to 
cross and attack the enemy below. The plans were 
considered by them in confidence. Nay more, when 
the lower one was relinquished, it was agreed that Mr. 
Reed should cross the river and confer with Griffin, then 
in acftual contadl with the enemy. This was done; the 
companion of the errand, as he has been, of unmerited 
calumny, being Colonel John Cox. This critical duty 
was performed, and the fadl ascertained that no assistance 
could be expeded in that quarter, and that Griffin was 
falling back. Then it was, that further confidence was 



39 

reposed in Mr. Reed by his fellow-soldier, Cadwalader. 
No one but they knew Washington's secret. He had 
trusted them, and they, each other, and for fear of 
accidental disclosure, Mr. Reed went to Philadelphia to 
hurry on reinforcements. He returned, just in time to 
take part in the unsuccessful attempt to pass the Dela- 
ware at Dunk's Ferry on the night of the 25th, and was 
one of the few officers who did cross and with Colonel 
Cowperthwaite remained on the other side,"' He re- 
turned to Bristol on the morning of the 26th, before 
news of Washington's success came and, when it was 
known, took part in the movement above Bristol on 
the 27th. And here, I venture to interrupt this line of 
thought by an incidental illustration of the failures of Gen- 
eral Cadwalader's memory en matters of facfl. The troops 
at Bristol crossed the Delaware on the 27th, it being 
supposed that Washington was still on the left bank. 
On landing, it was ascertained that he had re-crossed, 

* Mr. Bancroft says: 'Sending back word that it was impossible to 
carry out their share in Washington's plan. Reed deserted the party and 
rode to safe quarters within the enemies lines at Burlington, having pre- 
viously obtained leave for a conference with Donop.' Vol. 9, p. 229. 

It would be difficult to compress in few words more gross misrepre- 
sentation than there is here. The impossibility of crossing was patent 
to every body after the first experiment. Mr. Reed did not 'desert' in 
any sense. His contemporary enemies never said he did. He was ac- 
companied by another officer of rank whose fidelity never was suspefted. 
Burlington was not within the enemy's lines, and Mr. Reed returned to 
Bristol before any news was received from Trenton. Of the Donop 
fiftion, I shall speak hereafter. I incidentally annotate this illustration 
of Mr. Bancroft's persistent tendency to misstatement. 



40 

and it became a question what should be done by the 
force below. 

Writing of this, in 1783, General Cadwalader, in his 
pamphlet, says: that on the receipt of news that Wash- 
ington had re-crossed, "Colonel Hitchcock proposed 
returning to Bristol, / instantly declared my determination 
against it^ and recommended an attack on Mount Holly, 
as, from the information we had of the force there, we 
might easily carry it." 

There now lies before me a certified copy from the 
State Department of a letter from General Cadwalader 
to Washington, dated on the very day of the occurrence, 
'Burlington, ten o'clock, 27th,' in which he says: 

^'As I did not hear from you this morning, and being prepared 
to embark, I concluded you was still on this side, and therefore 
embarked and landed about 1500 men about two miles above 
Bristol. After a considerable number were landed, I had infor- 
mation from the paymaster of Colonel Hitchcock's brigade, that 
you had crossed over from Trenton. This defeated the scheme 
of joining your army. We were never more embarrassed which 
way to proceed. / thought it most prudent to retreat^ but Colonel 
Reed was of opinion that we might safely proceed to Burlington, 
and recommended it warmly, lest it should have a bad effect: on 
the militia, who were twice disappointed. The landing in open 
daylight must have alarmed the enemy, and we might have been 
cut off by all their force collected to this place. We had intel- 
ligence immediately afterwards, that the enemy had left the Black 
Horse and Mount Holly. Upon this we determined to proceed 
to Burlington. Colonel Reed and two other officers went on 
from one post to another till they came to Bordentown, where 
they found the coast clear. Colonel Reed and Colonel Cox are 



41 

now there, and we shall march at four to-morrow morning for 
that place." 

Again, there is an illustration of mistaken memory, 
wlien, in reply to the statement in Mr. Reed's ad- 
dress, that he went to Burlington before day hut tlid 
not leave Dunk's Kerry 'till he saw the last man re- 
embarked,' (jeneral Cadwalader in his pamphlet of 1783, 
said, this could not be, for 'there is no circumstance better 
ascertained than that many of the men were not brought 
back till cig/tt o'clock the next morning.* Writing to 
(jencral Washington, on the very day, (25th) Cadwala- 
der said: "We concliuled to withdraw the troops that 
had passed, but could not cflet't it till wn-dv Jokk o'clock in 
the morning. The whole was then ordered to march back 
to liristol." bOur o'clock on Cliristmas morninLT is cer- 

o 
tainly long " belore day." 

Thus closed this chapter of unreserved confidence, for 

it is4iot necessary for vindication to pursue the narrative, 

and scrutinizing it from fust to last, from the day when 

at Washington's request or suggestion, Mr, Reed joined 

Cadwalader at Hristol, till they pursued the Hying 

enemy to Hordentown, it seems to me difHcidt, from 

this unipiestioned record of mutual faith ami adtive 

co-operation, to resist the conclusion that the whole 

|)Iiantom, of Mr. Reed's disaffedion, was the coinage 

of passion, and what (ieneral (ireene called "iiarty 

rage." "General Cadwahuler never could have had 

such a thought." 



42 

Before adducing further proof on this point, for it is 
abundant, I pause on a matter of painful interest con- 
neded with these events; painful in this: that General 
Reed, thus in his lifetime assailed, went to his grave 
without recovering what would have been conclusive on 
the question he was forced to discuss. Time, however, 
has in this respect done justice. Instantly on the pub- 
lication of the anonymous queries of September, 1782, 
Mr. Reed wrote to Washington, saying: "My memory 
suggests to me a letter I wrote your excellency from 
Bristol containing reasons for an attack on the enemy; 
if that letter can be obtained, I am persuaded it contains 
sentiments of a very different nature from those of which 
I complain, and would be particularly useful." Wash- 
ington replied that "being in the field perfectly light," 
he had no papers with him, public or private, and could 
not therefore furnish the letter, expressing, at the same 
time, his disbelief of the charge understood to* be 
made. Nor was it ever recovered during Mr. Reed's 
lifetime; nor indeed, for fifty years after his death, v/hen 
Mr. Sparks found it in the Department of State, and 
printed it in the appendix to the fourth volume of the 
Works of Washington. There, for the first time I saw it. 

Reed to Washington. 

Bristol^ December 22, 1776. 
Dear Sir: 

Pomroy, whom I sent by your order to go to Amboy, and so 
through the Jerseys and round by Princeton to you, returned to 



43 

Burlington yesterday. He went to South Amboy, but was not 
able to get over ; upon which he came to Brunswick — passed on 
to Princeton, and was prevented from going to Pennington, upon 
which he returned to Burlington by way of Cranbury. His in- 
telligence is, that he saw no troops, baggage wagons, or artillery, 
going to New York, except about eight wagons, which he under- 
stood had the baggage of some of the light horse, who had been 
relieved and were going into quarters. At Cranbury he saw six- 
teen wagons going down to South Amboy, for the baggage of 
about five hundred men, who were to quarter about Cranbury, 
being enlisted forces commanded by one Lawrence. At Bruns- 
wick, he saw four pieces of cannon ; the number of men he 
could not learn, but they did not exceed six or eight hundred. 
Princeton, he says, was called head-quarters, and there he saw a 
very considerable body of troops coming out of the college, 
meeting house and other places where they quartered. He un- 
derstood they were settled in their winter quarters, and had given 
over further operations till the spring. In Burlington County, he 
found them scattered through all the farmers' houses, eight, ten, 
twelve and fifteen in a house, and rambling over the whole 
country. 

Colonel Griffin has advanced up the Jersey's with six hun- 
dred men as far as Mount Holly, within seven miles of their head- 
quarters at the Black Horse. He has written over here for two 
pieces of artillery and two or three hundred volunteers, as he 
expected an attack very soon. The spirits of the militia here 
are very high ; they are all for supporting him. Colonel Cadwala- 
der and the gentlemen here all agree, that they should be indulged. 
We can either give him a strong reinforcement, or make a 
separate attack -, the latter bids fairest for producing the greatest 
and best eff'ects. It is therefore determined to make all possible 
preparation to-day ; and no event happening to change our meas- 
ures, the main body here will cross the river to-morrow morn- 
ing, and attack their post between this and the Black Horse, pro- 
ceeding from thence, either to the Black Horse or the square, 
where about two hundred men are posted, as things shall turn 



44 

out with Griffin. If they should not attack Griffin as he expects, 
it is probable both our parties may advance to the Blacic Horse, 
should success attend the intermediate attempt. If they should 
collect their force and march against Griffin, our attack will have 
the best effects in preventing their sending troops on that errand, 
or breaking up their quarters and coming in upon their rear, which 
we must endeavour to do in order to free Griffin. We are all of 
opinion, my dear General, that something must be attempted, to 
revive our expiring credit, give our cause some degree of repu- 
tation, and prevent a total depreciation of the continental money, 
which is coming on very fast ; that even a failure cannot be more 
fatal than to remain in our present situation; in short, some en- 
terprise must be undertaken in our present circumstances, or we 
must give up the cause. In a little time the Continental army 
will be dissolved. The militia must be taken before their spirits 
and patience are exhausted; and the scattered, divided state of 
the enemy affords us a fair opportunity of trying what our men 
will do, when called to an offensive attack. Will it not be pos- 
sible, my dear General, for your troops, or such part of them as 
can act with advantage, to make a diversion, or something more, 
at or about Trenton? The greater the alarm, the more likely 
that success will attend the attacks. If we could possess ourselves 
again of New Jersey, or any considerable part of it, the effects 
would be greater than if we had never left it. 

Allow me to hope that you will consult your own good judg- 
ment and spirit, and not let the goodness of your heart subjeil 
you to the influence of opinions from men in every respedl your 
inferiors. Something must be done before the sixty days expire 
which the Commissioners have allowed ; for however many affect 
to despise it, it is evident that a very serious attention is paid to 
it, and I am confident that unless some more favourable appear- 
ance attends our arms and cause before that time, a very great 
number of the militia officers here will follow the example of 
those of Jersey, and take benefit from it. I will not disguise my 
own sentiments, that our cause is desperate and hopeless, if we 
do not take the opportunity of the colle<5f:ion of troops at present, 



45 

to strike some stroke. Our affairs are hastening fast to ruin, if 
we do not retrieve them by some happy event. Delay with us is 
now equal to a total defeat. Be not deceived, my dear General, 
with small, flattering appearances ; we must not suffer ourselves 
to be lulled into security and ina61:ion, b(K:ause the enemy does 
not cross the river. It is but a reprieve, the execution is more 
certain, for I am very clear, that they can and will cross the 
river, in spite of any opposition we can give them. 

Pardon the freedom I have used. The love of my country, a 
wife and four children in the enemy's hands, the respe6l and at- 
tachment I have to you, the ruin and poverty that must attend 
me, and thousands of others will plead my excuse for so much 
freedom. I am, with the greatest respedl and regard, dear sir. 
Your obedient and affe6lionate humble servant. 

Joseph Reed.* 

* Here again I stoop to pick up another of Mr. Bancroft's poisonous 
shafts. He says : " The elaborate letter of Reed to Washington, De- 
cember 22, 1776, proves, at most, that Reed was not in the secret. As 
Adjutant General, his place was at Washington's side, if he was eager 
for adlion." Mr. Bancroft knows perfeftly well that Reed was on de- 
tached duty at Bristol by Washington's orders. But he does not con- 
tent himself with this mild slander. He goes on to say: "Lord Bacon 
says: 'Letters are good when it may serve afterwards for a man's justi- 
fication to produce his own letter.' In 1782, Reed wished to produce 
this letter for his own justification, &c." If such was Mr. Reed's de- 
sign in writing this letter, he would have kept a copy to produce on a 
fit occasion and this we know he certainly did not. As I have said in 
the text, he never saw this letter during his life. A part of it was print- 
ed by Gordon in 1788, three years after Mr. Reed's death. I have 
no words with which to charafterize Mr. Bancroft's treatment of these 
subjefts. He seems to revel in defamation of certain individuals, and 
if the reader will turn to another of Lord Bacon's Essays, that 
on * Truth,' (^Whately's edition, page 2) he may see what mixture it is 
that gives zest to this enjoyment. I never claimed for Mr. Reed any 
very large share of merit in what he then did and said and wrote, but, 
even that, Mr. Bancroft begrudges. 



46 

This letter and others to be quoted by and by, tell 
the whole story. They are the letters of an anxious and 
resolute man; of one who sees the future clearly and 
states his views precisely. They ai-e the letters of a 
suggestive, enterprising man, capable of exertions; whom 
the gloom of the probable future did not incapacitate. 
The letter of the 22d, was written within the "few days" 
of suspense before the affair at Trenton. Yet this letter, 
no one of the busy men who, from time to time, have 
been disinterring these buried controversies has had the 
honesty to re-print. 

Thus was Mr. Reed regarded and confided in during 
the campaign of 1776 by General Cadwalader himself, 
and though, by the certificate of Hamilton, an attempt 
is made to show that in 1777 he declared his distrust, 
and spoke of the imputed infidelity of the year before; 
yet the fad is incontestable that, throughout that year, in 
all the operations in the neigbourhood of Philadelphia, 
Cadwalader and Reed were ading together on terms of 
the most affectionate confidence. It was their common 
honour to be recommended in the same letter by Wash- 
ington, for militarv promotion. "I shall take the lib- 
erty," he wrote to Congress, *' of recommending Colonel 
Cadwalader as one of the first of the new appointments. 
I have found him a man of ability, a good disciplinarian, 
firm in his principles and of intrepid bravery. I also 
beg leave to recommend Colonel Reed to the command 
of the horse, as a person in my opinion in every way 



47 

qualified; for he is extremely adive and enterprising, 
many signal proofs of which he has given this campaign."'''" 
They served together from Germantown to Monmouth. 
If General Cadwalader in 1777, did intimate to 
Hamilton this more than suspicion of his companion 
in arms, it must have been, we are bound to sup- 
pose, in no spirit of wanton and gratuitous disparage- 
ment, but from some sense of public duty, Hamilton 
being in close connexion with the Commander-in- 
Chief. What then, on this theory, can be thought of 
the following letters to Mr. Reed the two from 
Washington being re-produced to show that then, as 
ever, he reposed in Mr. Reed the most implicit confi- 
dence ? It was more than an appearance of trust. It 
was afFedionate and abiding faith. One of them I now 
publish for the first time, for it was recovered after the 
appearance of my Mernoir in 1847. 

Washington to Reed. 

Middlebrook^ June 23, 1 777. 
Dear Sir: 

Your favours of the 12th and i8th inst. are both before me, 
and on two accounts have given me {illegible) ; first, because 
I much wished to see you at the head of the Cavalry j and 
secondly, by refusing of it, my arrangements have been a good 
deal disconcerted. As your reasons for refusing the appointment, 
are no doubt satisfactory to yourself, and your determination 
fixed, it is unnecessary to enter upon a discussion of the point. 
I can only add, I wish it had been otherwise, especially as I flat- 
ter myself that my last v/ould convince you that you still held 

* Sparks Washington IV. 292. 



48 

the same place in my afFeilion that you ever did. If inclination 
or a desire of rendering those aids to the service which your 
abilities enable you to do should lead you to the camp, it is un- 
necessary for me I hope to add that I should be extremely hap- 
py in seeing you one of my Family whilst you remain in it. 

The late coalition of parties in Pennsylvania is a most fortu- 
nate circumstance; that, and the spirited manner in which the 
militia of this State turned out upon the late manoeuvre of the 
enemy, have in my opinion given a greater shock to the enemy 
than any event which has happened in the course of this dispute 
because it was altogether unexpeited and gave the decisive stroke 
to their enterprise on Philadelphia. The hint you have given 
respeiling the compliment due the Executive powers of Penn- 
sylvania I thank you for, but can assure you I gave General 
Mifflin no dire6tion respeiling the militia, that I did not conceive, 
nay that I had not been told by Congress he was vested with be- 
fore ; for you must know that General Mifflin, at the particular 
instance and by a resolve of Congress had been detained from 
his duty in this camp near a month to be in readiness to have 
out the militia, if occasion should require it, and only got here 
the day before I received such intelligence as convinced me that 
the enemy were upon the point of moving; in consequence of 
which, I requested him to return and without defining his duty 
desired he would use his utmost endeavours to carry the designed 
operation into effect, conceiving that a previous plan had been 
laid down by Congress on the State of Pennsylvania so far as 
respected the mode of drawing the militia out. The action of 
them afterwards, circumstances alone could direct. I did not 
pretend to give any order about it. 

It gives me pleasure to learn from your letter that the reasons 
assigned by me to General Arnold for not attacking the enemy 
in their situation between the Raritan and Millstone met with 
the approbation of those who were acquainted with them. We 
have some among us, and I dare say Generals, who wish to make 
themselves popular at the expense of others or who think the 
cause is not to be advanced otherwise than by fighting ; the pe- 



49 

culiar circumstances under which it is to be done and the con- 
sequences which may follow are objects too trivial for their at- 
tention ; but as I have one great end in view, I shall, maugre all 
the [illegible) of this kind, steadily pursue means which in my 
judgment lead to the accomplishment of it, not doubting but that 
the candid part of mankind, if they are convinced of my integ- 
rity, will make proper allowance for my inexperience and frailties. 
I will agree to be loaded with all the obloquy they can bestow 
if I commit a wilful error. 

If General Howe has not manoeuvered much deeper than 
most people seem disposed to think him capable of, his army is 
absolutely gone, if panic-struck, but as I cannot persuade my- 
self with a belief of the latter, notwithstanding it is the prevailing 
opinion of my officers, I cannot say that the move I am about to 
make towards Amboy accords altogether with my opinion, not 
that I am under any other apprehension than that of being 
obliged to lose ground again, which would indeed be no small 
misfortune, as the spirits of our troops and the country are greatly 
revived (and I presume) the enemy's not a little depressed by 
their late retrograde motions. 

By some late accounts, I fancy the British Grenadiers got a 
pretty severe peppering yesterday, by Morgan's rifle corps ; they 
fought, it seems, a considerable time within the distance of from 
twenty to forty yards and from concurring accounts of several 
of the officers more than one hundred of them must have 
fallen.* Had there not been some mistake in point of time for 

*Mr. Bancroft has no sympathy with Virginia, and sometimes shows 
it in an odd way. Speaking of Morgan, a most gallant soldier, but of 
whose freaks at Elizabethtown Point, Mr. Bancroft gives a most re- 
markable account, he says: "Next to Washington, Morgan was the 
best officer whom Virginia sent into the field, though she raises no 
statue to the incomparable leader of her light troops." (page 131.) To 
what soldier of the Revolution has Massachusetts, or New York, or 
Pennsylvania raised a statue ? There are hideous Penns and awkward 
Franklins, and Hancocks, and Otis, and Websters, and Storys, and 
Evereffs, and Horace Manns, but there is no Monumental stone for 

4 



50 

marching the several brigades that were ordered upon that ser- 
vice, and particularly in delivering an order to General Varnum, 
I believe the rear of General Howe's troops might have been a 
little rougher handled than they were, or if an Express who 
went to General Maxwell the evening before, had reached him in 
time to co-operate upon the enemy's flank, for which purpose he 
was sent down the day before with a respectable force, very good 
consequences might have resulted from it ; however it is too late 
to remedy those mistakes now, and my paper tells me I can add 
no more than to assure you, that I am Dear Sir, 

Y'r afFea'e. 

Go. Washington. 

Cadwalader to Reed. 

Head ^uartcrs^ 3^^^ November^ '^777- 
Dear Sir: 

We were consulting about winter quarters when your letter 
came to hand, and I detained your servant in hopes of giving you 
their determination, but the General has required the opinion of 
the officers in writing, at lO o'clock to-morrow morning. I showed 
your letter to the General. Many of the officers are for going 
into winter quarters, on the line from Lancaster towards Easton. 
If this is attempted, I am sure the troops will march there only 
to be disappointed. By the best information, those towns are 
crowded with inhabitants from the city and little shelter can be 
found there. 

The General officers will set the example of going home, the 
field officers will follow their example: captains and subalterns 
will expect the same indulgence and the soldiers vi^ill apply for 
furloughs; and if refused will desert. By these means the army 

the ancient soldiers of the North. It may too admit of a question, 
and, that without disparagement, whether Morgan was a better officer 
than Henry Lee, who was a Virginian. Morgan was born in 

New Jersey. 



51 

will be dispersed through the difFerent colonies and it will be im- 
possible to collect them in time to open an early campaign. The 
country on every side will be left to be plundered and vast num 
bers will apply for protection. The inhabitants will be dispirited^ 
the credit of our money ruined, the recruiting service at an end 
and inevitable ruin must follow. It has been proposed to take 
post at Wilmington and the little towns in that neighbourhood 
and build huts for those who cannot be provided with quarters. If 
we do not do this, the enemy may take possession of this post 
with two thousand men or three, which they can easily spare 
and by this means secure the lower counties on the eastern 
shore. By taking possession of this strong post, and bringing 
down the gondolas, we may annoy the navigation, and by being 
on the spot in spring, take such measures as may oblige the 
enemy to come out and attack us in the field. We have good 
information that Cornwallis is returned and that the enemy had 
orders to march at two o'clock yesterday morning. The orders 
were not given out 'till dusk — the officers were driving about in 
great confusion and were heard to complain that the orders 
came out so late. The weather prevented, or we should certain- 
ly have had a brush yesterday. Greene and the detachment 
from New Jersey are all arrived in camp. We are now in full 
force and in perfect readiness for them, and wish nothing more 
earnestly than to see them out. This weather will probably 
delay the matter for a few days, but I have no doubt they intend 
us a visit or else this is given out to cover a design of making 
a large foraging party to New Jersey, as a great number of boats 
have been collected. The last seems very probable. The Mar- 
quis, you know, was in Jersey; he commanded the detachment 
of riflemen about 150, and 130 militia, with which he attacked 
a Kessian picket, 350 men, and drove them above a mile, and at 
dusk remained master of the field, finding a number of dead and 
taking fourteen prisoners. 'Tis said they lost twenty killed ; we 
lost but three or four men. The Marquis behaved with great 
bravery and extols the riflemen and militia to the skies. The 
enemy crossed at Gloucester, covered by their shipping, and took 



52 

with them about four hundred head of cattle, chiefly milch cows 
and young cattle. Greene intended to attack Cornwallis and had 
made his disposition, but prudently declined it. The attempt in 
my opinion was dangerous, as 2 or 3000 men could have been 
thrown in his rear, or a reinforcement sent over to Gloucester in 
the night, without his notice. Nothing more worth notice. 

Cannot you come here to-morrow and advise ? You can 
think of the matter to night. My compliments to the ladies. 

Your most obedient and 

Very humble servant. 

To General Reed. John Cadwalader. 

Washington to Reed. 

Whitemarsh^ December 2, 1777. 
Dear Sir, 

If you can with any convenience, let me see you to day, I 
shall be thankful for it. I am about fixing the winter cantonments 
of the army, and find so many and such capital objeitions to 
each mode proposed, that I am exceedingly embarrassed, not 
only by advice given me, but in my own judgment and should 
be very glad of your sentiments on the matter without loss of 
time. In hopes of seeing you I shall only add, that from Read- 
ing to Lancaster, inclusively, is the general sentiment, whilst Wil- 
mington and its vicinity, have powerful advocates. This, how- 
ever, is mentioned under the rose ; for I am convinced in my own 
opinion, that if the enemy believed we had this place in contem 
plation they would possess themselves of it immediately. I ant 
very sincerly, dear sir 

Yours affedlionately. 

General Reed. G. Washington. 

Cadwalader to Reed. 

Head Quarters ^ December lO, 1777. 
Dear Sir: 

If I have in the least degree contributed to promote the general 
cause, I shall think my time well spent ; as soon as the army is 



S3 

fixed for the winter, I shall return to my family in Maryland; 
but think it my duty to render every service in my pow^er at the 
opening of the next campaign. I am sorry I cannot think as 
you do with respeft to the accepting an appointment in this 
State; I look upon the present powers established as a most 
daring, dangerous usurpation ; and can never consent to support 
or even countenance it. I opposed it as long as those engaged 
appeared in earnest, and as long as measures which must cer- 
tainly have succeeded, were supported. The same reasons which 
induced the gentlemxcn who have given up the cause to defer 
the opposition till the present troubles were over, will have as 
much weight when the States are tired out with a long and ex- 
pensive war as I conceive this government can never be changed 
without another revolution. 

Your country is much indebted for your services and nothing 
is more reasonable than to repair your loss. I shall most 
chearfully take the first opportunity of mentioning it to the 
General and if it cannot be done in this line, will write to some 
of the members of Congress. The army marches to morrow 
verv early. 

For God's sake endeavour to suppress this dangerous faction 
before it gets too great a length ! If it succeeds, America is lost. 
I am. Dear Sir, with great respeft and esteem, 

your most obedient and humble servant. 

General Reed. John Cadwalader. 



Conclusive as are these letters that General Cadwal- 
ader could not have believed in 1776 or 1777 what he 
alleged so positively in 1778 and 1783, it would be un- 
just to Mr. Reed to rest his vindication on them alone. 

The accusation of 1783 was a sweeping one, and in- 
volved others besides Mr. Reed. Two gentlemen were 
especially assailed — Mr. Bowes Reed, (the General's bro- 



54 

ther) and Colonel John Cox, of New Jersey — the former 
directly, the latter indirectly. 

"He (General Reed) said:" — this is the * Brutus* 
charge — "that his brother, then Colonel or Lieutenant 
Colonel of the militia was at Burlington with his family; 
that he had advised him to remain there; and if the 
enemy took possession of the town, to take a protection 
and swear allegiance and in so doing he would be per- 
fectly justified." 

Mr. Bowes Reed who many years survived his bro- 
ther promptly met the charge, as it was first presented 
by 'Brutus,' and to this contradiction it should be re- 
membered Cadwalader's pamphlet makes no reply. 

" Bowes Reed, Esquire, Secretary of the State of New Jersey, 
and heretofore a lieutenant colonel in the new levies of said State, 
being duly sworn, deposeth and saith : that, in the month of De- 
cember, 1776, this deponent's time being expired in the five 
months' service, he returned, in bad health, to Burlington, in 
New Jersey, the place of his former residence, which, though 
not occupied by the troops of either party, was subje6l to the in- 
cursions of both ; that during that time this deponent's brother, 
then Adjutant General of the Continental army, frequently came 
over from Bristol, where the Pennsylvania militia then lay, in 
order to procure intelligence of the movements and designs of the 
enemy, then lying at Bordentown, the Black Horse, and Mount 
Holly ; that this deponent assisted his brother in said service by 
procuring and equipping spies to go within the enemy's lines, and 
communicating the advice occasionally received ; and this deponent 
farther saith: that during the said time or at any other his bro- 
ther never intimated to this deponent in the most distant man- 
ner any advice or encouragement to seek protection of the ene- 



5S 

my ; but on the other hand, that he was too much exposed to the 
incursions of the enemy and wished him to remove to a place 
of greater safety j and this deponent further saith : that during the 
said time, his said brother never expressed to him any apprehen- 
sions of the success of the cause, but seemed wholly engaged 
in procuring intelligence, and pursuing other methods to annoy 
and defeat the designs of the enemy ; this deponent farther says : 
that his said brother, to his knowledge or belief, was not engaged 
in any other measure, than as above mentioned, except, that at 
the request of a number of the people of Burlington, who were 
greatly distressed by parties from each army, he publicly sent a 
message to Count Donop, who then commanded the troops on the 
part of the enemy, proposing, mutually, to keep the said parties 
out of the town, on which Count Donop sent a messenger with 
an answer, as this deponent was then informed', who returned 
without delivering it, as his said brother was then gone into 
Pennsylvania ; that in a few days afterwards the surprise of the 
Hessians, at Trenton, took place, and the war was entirely re- 
moved from this part of the country ; and farther, the deponent 
saith not. 

Sworn before me, the 23rd day Bowes Reed. 

of Odober, 1782. 

Sam. How. 

The other individual indiredly attacked by General 
Cadwalader and his friends was Colonel John Cox of 
New Jersey. To his numerous descendants I leave the 
duty of doing justice to his memory, should it, in the 
waste of reputation which now prevails, be further as- 
sailed, merely saying that he was a man of high per- 
sonal chara6ter, a sterling patriot from first to last, a gal- 
lant soldier and a most accomplished gentleman. He 
was one of the two who were associated with Greene 



56 

when in 1778 he accepted the post of Quartermaster 
General. In fadt, General Greene made this association 
the condition of undertaking so arduous and thankless 
a duty. With Mr. Reed, Colonel Cox was closely con- 
nected. The correspondence in my possession amply 
attests this. In the operations on the Delaware in De- 
cember 1776, they acted together. Jerseymen by birth 
and education, and thoroughly familiar with the neigh- 
bourhood where the military operations were, they were 
associated in various perilous enterprises. Colonel Cox 
accompanied Mr. Reed on his visit to Griffin at Mount 
Holly on the night of the 24th of December, and their 
families were fugitives together on the edge of the pine 
forests. Mr. Cox shares some of the calumnies 
which had their origin in these scenes of trial and 
peril; for in the last libellous re-issue — the Philadelphia 
one of 1863 — he is spoken of as '■^YLttd's particeps crim- 
inis." During his life, however, no one ventured openly 
to attack him. 

The instant Mr. Reed was assailed in Oswald's paper, 
Colonel Cox came to the rescue of his friend, and, as 
early as October 20th, 1782, made the following state- 
ment, which shows the confidential relations of the 
parties. 

Certificate from the Hon. John Cox, Esquire, Vice 
President of New Jersey. 

These are to certify, that, in the month of December, 1776, 
the subscriber, being then lieutenant colonel of the second bat- 



57 

talion of Philadelphia miUtia, lying at Bristol, Mr. Joseph Reed, 
the then adjutant generai of the Continental army, came down 
to the militia by the direction of the commander in chief (as the 
subscriber understood) that he quartered in the same house with 
the subscriber and was engaged in procuring intelligence from 
the enemy, and in the most confidential communications of the 
operations of the army ; that the subscriber accompanied him in 
one to Mount Holly to Colonel Griffin and, as the subscriber 
understood, was treated with the most unreserved confidence 
both at Bristol and elsewhere with resped: to the movements 
and designs of the troops ; that his advice and opinion appeared 
to be much depended on, particularly with respe6l to crossing 
over and remaining in New Jersey, which led to the successes at 
Princeton and the favorable issue of the campaign ; that the sub- 
scriber verily believes those communications to have been made 
at such times and under such circumstances as must have sub- 
jelled the troops to certain destru6lion and the commanding 
officer to the highest censure, if, on the one hand, the person en- 
trusted had proved unfaithful, or on the other, the commanding 
officer had reason to suspect him. The subscriber also well re- 
members that the enemy were not far distant from where we land- 
ed ; that it was proposed by several officers to return to Pennsylva- 
nia; that Mr. Reed was of opinion that re-crossing the river would 
greatly dispirit the troops and therefore was against it, and offered 
to explore the country where the enemy was supposed to be ; which, 
by the request of General Cadwalader, he accordingly did with- 
out any covering party or company, save Colonel Cowperthwaite, 
the subscriber, and a guide; that during the continuance of the 
militia at Bristol, the subscriber was on terms of the most unre- 
served intimacy with Mr. Reed, and had frequent confidential 
conversations with him on the state of affairs, which then wore 
the darkest appearance, in all which the said Mr. Reed never in- 
timated, nor had the subscriber the least reason to suspect he had 
any intention of abandoning the cause or arms of his country to 
join those of the enemy; that it appeared to the subscriber, that 
General Cadwalader during his stay at Bristol depended in a 



great measure for intelligence on the said Mr. Reed and the sub- 
scriber, which their knowledge of the' country enabled them to 
obtain for him daily; that the subscriber had frequent conversa- 
tions with the said Mr. Reed during the time of our greatest dif- 
ficulty and distress, in none of which did it ever appear to be the 
intention of Mr. Reed to abandon the cause of his country by 
joining the enemy, but, on the contrary, showed every disposition 
to oppose and counteract them and the subscriber verily believes 
that had any such intention been formed by the said Mr. Reed, he 
would have communicated it to the subscriber; that he never 
heard from General Cadwalader of his entertaining any doubt of 
Mr. Reed's attachment to or perseverance in the cause of 
America, or any opinion expressed by him that induced a belief 
that said Cadwalader entertained other than a favourable one 
touching the said Reed's zeal or activity in the public service. 

Trenton^ O£lober 20, 1782. John Cox. 

Of this complete denial, General Cadwalader took no 
notice, for, while he referred injuriously to a relatively 
humble man Mr. Ellis, no word of contradiction or in- 
sinuation was levelled at Colonel Cox. That Mr. Cox 
was disposed to resent any disparagement of his integrity 
or fidelity to his country, is apparent from the follow- 
ing extract of a letter to Mr. Pettit, (the original now 
in my possession,) dated at his country place near Tren- 
ton, April 14th, 1783. It has never before been 
in print: 

*'I observe by Bradford's last paper, that Cadwalader's replv 
to General Reed's remarks is published. I want much to see it 
though I disregard anything that he or any of his toad-eaters can 
say with truth touching my character, and great as they may be, 



S9 

should they have asserted what is false, I will make them answer 
for their audacity." 

I have said, Cadwalader made no direct reference to 
Mr. Cox. If, however, as has been lately suggested, Col- 
onel Cox was the officer who accompanied Mr. Reed to 
Burlington, there is a remote allusion to him as the com- 
panion of a guilty errand. It is however very obscure 
and would scarcely be worth noticing, but for an appa- 
rent confirmation in an entry in what is known as 
"Margaret Morris' Journal," which has lately been dis- 
interred, where Colonel Cox's name is introduced. Of 
this, I have only to say that the dates disprove the 
whole story. Those who think that the character of 
brave men can be blasted in history by an old or young 
woman repeating what was told by a household female 
domestic — black or white — I can hardly hope to convince. 
But that this trash has more than once, and lately (1863) 
been re-printed; that it is kindred in some respects to 
the graver libels I have been considering and that I de- 
sire to trample out even the minute varieties of the spe- 
cies, I should not notice it even to this extent. General 
Cadwalader's statement having been fairly examined 
and, I hope, disposed of, I turn to the extrinsic evidence 
he adduced on the single point — for to it I now con- 
fine myself — of Mr. Reed's 'dangerous despondency' of 
December, 1776. 

The three witnesses are Mr. Philemon Dickinson, Mr. 
John Nixon, and Dodor Benjamin Rush. I have no- 



6o 

ticed Mr. Nixon's statement, and scarcely think it worth 
while to refer to Mr. Dickinson's, which is simply that 
Mr. Reed addressed to him a remark he regarded as 
offensive. 

Dr. Rush is the witness in chief. His testimony 
dated in March, 1783, may be thus stated: 

That in friendly and accidental conversation, on a 
ride to Headquarters, Mr. Reed spoke with great res- 
pect of the bravery of the British troops and with great 
contempt of the cowardice of the Americans, and more 
especially of the New England troops. He denounced 
'with an oath' Mr. John Dickinson, the author of the 
Farmer's Letters, who, s-t was rumoured, for slander was 
very busy then, had deserted to the enemy, as having 
begun an opposition which we have not strength to finish. 
He said that a gentlemen who had submitted to the 
enemy had ad:ed properly, and that a man who had a 
family did right to take care of them. 

Such are the substantive averments, with Dodlor 
Rush's gloss that the whole conversation indicated a 
great despair of the American cause, and the addition, 
that he repeated what he heard to his brother Jacob 
Rush and to John Adams, who, he gravely says, replied: 
"That the powers of the human mind are combined 
together in a, variety of ways." 

If Do6lor Rush is to be regarded as a witness in sup- 
port of a charge made by another, the obvious comment 
on this testimony is that it is utterly destitute of pre- 



6i 

cision, except in the Imprecation put into Mr. Reed's 
mouth when speaking of Mr. Dickinson; that it was a 
distant recolledion, through seven long years of civil war 
with all its disturbing elements, and that, as in the case of 
General Cadwalader, it was not seriously regarded at the 
time, since "it did not diminish the resped" of the wit- 
ness for Mr. Reed. To the suggestion of the lapse of 
time, it may be replied that it was Dodor Rush's habit, 
(as is well known,) to keep a diary or note book In which 
he registered all the irritating occurrences of his restless 
life in order that his memory even of the remote past 
might be kept fresh, and his resentments never allowed 
to cool.* This Is true, and I and every other inquirer 
must await the time when the diary, worthless as it may 
be, shall be given to the world, and its supposed revela- 
tions can be scrutinized. If, in December, 1776, or at 
any time before 1782, Dodor Rush noted a conversation 
of this kind with Mr. Reed, let the entry in the diary 
be produced and it shall be fairly met. As Mr. Ban- 
croft quotes this diary, perhaps, he can vouch It. If he 
has it and it contains any disparagement of Mr. Reed, 
he surely would have quoted it. I have no idea that he 
has it, though he so ostentatiously cites It. Nor is the 
story credible that Rush, on the 23d, *saw' Washington 

* In Swift's Journal to Stella y September (), 1710,13 this passage: 
** For an hour and a half we talked treason heartily against the Whigs, 
their baseness and ingratitude. And I am come home rolling resentments 
in my mind, and forming schemes of revenge, full of which, having 
written down some parts, I go to bed." 



62 

write the watchword 'Vidory or Death !' The 23d was 
the day when the Commander-in-Chief wrote his conjfi- 
dential letter to Reed, in which he said: "For heaven's 
sake keep this to yourself as the discovery may prove 
fatal to us;" and it is not credible that he would tell a 
military secret to a tattler like Doftor Rush, or publish 
it by a watchword, or even determine on a countersign- 
so long in advance. The whole thing don't sound like 
Washington, except perhaps in Mr. Bancroft's ears.* 

But if Dod:or Rush be "Brutus," and this, on the 
evidence, is my belief; if it was he who started this 
wretched controversy, then, his relation to the whole 
affair is widely different. If Dodor Rush was " Brutus," 
it is very clear that so far as he is concerned, the allegata 
d.nd. probata strangely confli<5l; for the "Queries of Bru- 
tus" and the certificate of Rush do not refer to the 
same fads or similar fadls in any single point of resem- 
blance. Why, one may ask, this discrepancy, the agents 
or authors being the same ? Was it that, one accusation 

* The only other reference in print to this Diary or Note Book is 
in a letter from Mr. Adams to Doftor Rush, dated i8th April, 1790, 
showing that it runs over many years. He savs : *' How many follies 
and indiscreet speeches do your minutes in your Note Book bring to my 
recolleflion, which I had forgotten forever ! Alas ! I fear I am not yet 
much more prudent. Your character of Mr. Paine is very well, and 
very just. To the accusation against me, which you have recorded in 
your Note Book of the 17th March last, I plead not guilty. I deny 
all attachment to monarchy, and I deny that I have changed mv princi- 
ples since 1776." {^Adams^ Works, Vol. IX., page 566.) It was a 
saying of John Randolph of Roanoke, that he "not only never kept a 
diary, but he did not like to keep company with any man who did." 



63 

being made anonymously, another was purposely held 
back to be used as a sort of corroboration? Why 
was it, "Brutus" being Rush, that the Queries referred 
to what Mr. Reed is reputed to have said to "the com- 
manding officer at Bristol," and not at all to what he said 
to the companion of the ride to Newtown ? If Doftor 
Rush was "Brutus," or indeed if he were only "Bru- 
tus's" chief authority, then the question directly pre- 
sents itself, and shall be frankly considered — Was he 
a credible witness ? I think, I can demonstrate he 
was not. 

The career of Doctor Benjamin Rush, aside from his 
professional merits, of which I am utterly unfit to judge 
was that of a busy, restless, indirect man, emphatically, 
a man of animosities. There is not a scandal or offen- 
sive truth of the Revolution within the sphere of his 
action and influence that did not take wing from his 
tongue or pen. He was a fisher in troubled waters and 
upon him fell, in later life, a fearful retribution in the 
fierce invectives of William Cobbett, — the Rush-Light, 
and Peter Porcupine. The poisoned cup came back 
with new venom infused. 

In November, 1776, Rush, described by Mr. Bancroft 
as one of *the best of the whigs,' co-operated v/ith Mr. 
Dickinson, whom he had recently, in private, denounced, 
in vehement opposition to the new Constitution of Penn- 
sylvania. On or about the 21st December, within a day 
or two of the date of his pretended conversation with 



64 

Mr. Reed, he wrote to Richard Henry Lee from Bris- 
tol: "Since the captivity of General Lee a distrust has 
crept in among the troops of the abilities of some of 
our Generals, high in command. They expect nothing 
now from Heaven-born and book-taught Generals.'"' I 
hope in our next promotions we shall disregard seniority." 
There is no mistaking this allusion to Washington. 
Still later in the same year, Doctor Rush was with the 
army, and, on hearing that his father-in-law (Mr. Stock- 
ton) was a prisoner and had been maltreated, he wrote 
to a friend in the following strain of ludicrous exaggera- 
tion: "Every particle of my blood is electrified by re- 
venge and if justice cannot be done in any other way, I 
declare I will, in defiance of the authority of Congress 
and the power of the army, drive the first rascally Tory 
I meet with, a hundred miles barefoot through the first 
deep snow that falls in our country * * * * <I long to 
be satiated with revenge at the Scotch Englishmen — Hy- 
der Ali,' (the Nana Sahib of those days,) * is the standing 
toast of my dinner table."f In 1777, he was at Princeton 
and is said to have recorded in his dreary Note Book 
that General Mercer did not die of his wounds, but from 
natural causes. In March 1778, for the work of secret 
accusation of some body never seemed to intermit. 
General Washington wrote to Congress: "Enclosed 



* Do6lor Rush either caught the phrase "Heaven-born Generals" 
from his friend Charles Lee, or gave it to him. Bancroft Vol. 9, page 207. 
■j" Letter of Rush to R. H. Lee, December 30, 1776. 



65 

you have a copy of a letter, which I received a few days 
ago from Doctor Rush. As this letter contains charges 
of a very heinous nature against the Director General, 
Doctor Shippen, for mal-practices and neglect in his 
department, I could not but look upon it as meant for 
a public accusation and have therefore thought it incum- 
bent on me to lay it before Congress. I have showed it 
to Doctor Shippen, that he may be prepared to vindicate 
his character if called upon. He tells me, Doctor Rush 
made charges of a private nature before a Committee of 
Congress appointed to hear them, which he could not 
support. If so. Congress will not have further occasion 
to trouble themselves in the matter." 

But Doctor Rush hunted higher game than Medical 
Directors. In the winter and early spring of 1778, 
when Congress was squabbling at Yorktown, and Wash- 
ington and his wretched soldiers were suffering at Valley 
Forge, Patrick Henry, then Governor of Virginia, re- 
ceived at Williamsburg an anonymous letter, in which 
this passage occurred: 

"The Northern army has shown us what Americans are ca- 
pable of doing with a General at their head. The spirit of the 
Southern army is no ways inferior to the spirit of the Northern. 
A Gates, a Lee, or a Conway, would in a few weeks render them 
an irresistible body of men. The last of the above officers has 
accepted the new office of Inspector General of our army, in 
order to reform abuses ; but the remedy is only a palliative one. 
In one of his letters to a friend he says: 'A great and good God 

hath decreed America to be free, or the General and weak coun- 

5 



66 

sellers would have ruined her long ago.' You may rest assured 
of each of the fa6ls related in this letter. The author of it is 
one of your Philadelphia friends. A hint of his name, if found 
out by the handwriting, must not be mentioned to your most in- 
timate friend. Even the letter must be thrown in the fire. But 
some of its contents ought to be made public in order to awaken, 
enlighten and alarm our country — I rely upon your prudence." 



What is dignified by this anonymous assailant, 
as 'prudence,' sympathy vs^ith a correspondent willing 
to wound and yet afraid to strike, was no part of 
the noble Virginian's nature. He did not recognise 
his "Philadelphia friend" by "the handwriting." 
He did not "throw the letter into the fire," but for- 
warded it at once to Washington, with this comment: 
"While you face the armed enemies of our liberty in 
the field, and by the favour of God have been kept un- 
hurt, I trust your country will never harbour in her 
bosom the miscreant who would ruin her best supporter. 
I wish not to flatter; but when arts unworthy honest 
men are used to defame and traduce you, I think it not 
amiss, but a duty, to assure you of that estimation, in 
which the public hold you." Washington's answer was 
prompt and decisive. "The anonymous letter with 
which you were pleased to favour me was written 
by Dod:or Rush, so far as I can judge from a similitude 
of hands. This man has been elaborate and studied in 
his professions of regard for me; and long since the let- 
ter to you." * * * * * :i5 * ^:: <<This is not 



6? 

the only insidious attempt that has been made to wound 
my reputation. There have been others equally base, 
cruel, and ungenerous." 

In 1779, Dodlor Rush was' an active participant in 
the heated, local politics of Pennsylvania, a contributor 
to the newspapers, and took part with General Cadwala- 
der in the tumultuous town meetings of that dreary 
year, having for their main objed the embarrassment of 
Mr. Reed's Executive Administration. It was the year 
of "Fort Wilson," and its bloody incidents. Then, too, 
he resumed his congenial work of anonymous scribbling. 
On the 24th of Odober, 1779, he wrote signing it "an old 
friend" t;o Charles Lee — a moody, discontented and dis- 
graced man, who hated Washington and Reed with equal 
intensity: "Have patience; time and posterity will do 
you justice. The summer flies that now din our ears, 
must soon retire. Nothing but virtue and real abilities 
will finally pass muster, when the public cool a little from 
the ferment into which the great and sudden events of the 
late Revolution have thrown us. I would rather be one 
of your dogs in a future history of the present war, than 
possess the first honours that are now current in America, 
with the charadlers which I know some of our great men 
merit. Poor Pennsylvania has become the most miser- 
able spot on the surface of the globe." In 178 1, Doc- 
tor Rush with the fluency which his animosities stimu- 
lated wrote to Gates, (also under a cloud and disconten- 
ted) as to his fears of a monarchy and aristocracy from 



68 

those whom he describes as "the Sachems of the Poto- 
mac and the Hudson" meaning Washington whom he 
hated, and, probably, the Livingstons and Schuylers. 
And so it continued to the bitter end, for we find that Doc- 
tor Rush's antipathy to Washington if not to his friends 
long survived the exasperations of war. "Doctor Rush 
tells me," says Mr. Jefferson in his *Ana' of twenty 
years later, (the ist of February 1800,) exactly forty 
days after Washington died amidst the tears of a whole 
people with the exception of a fev/ who felt as did Doc- 
tor Rush — "he (Rush,) tells me that he had it from 
Greene, that when the Clergy addressed General Wash- 
ington on his departure from the Government, it was 
observed in their consultation that he had never on any 
occasion said a word to the public which showed a belief 
in the Christian religion, and they thought they should 
so pen their address as to force him at length to declare 
publicly whether he was a Christian or not. They did so. 
However, he observed, the old fox was too cunning for 
them. He answered every article of their address, ex- 
cept that, which he passed over without notice." 

It was this writer of anonymous defamation, this ve- 
hement partisan, he, who could stand on Washington's 
fresh grave, and scoff at the great inhabitant below; it 
was he who was Mr. Reed's chief assailant in 1782 and 
1783, who, in all probability, initiated the controversy 
and who certainly volunteered to be a chief witness. 
Hence, the reader will see the relevancy to the questions 



«9 

I have been considering, of this analysis of Doctor 
Rush's charadler. As a witness for anything in which his 
passions were involved, I have a right to describe 
him as utterly unworthy of belief. That he was es- 
pecially hostile to Mr. Reed has already been stated, 
and will not be disputed. The mysterious diary, if it 
ever sees the day, will, I doubt not, be a new revelation 
of this hatred, which did not abate so long as its objecfl 
was among living men. I have recently seen an an- 
cient newspaper which throws some light on the special 
ground of this antipathy, affed:ing not only Dodlor Rush, 
but his brother and co-witness, Mr. Jacob Rush. It is 
the Freemans' Journal of Wednesday, March 9, 1785, 
four days after Mr. Reed's death. It contains a state- 
ment by Mr. Sergeant, who had been Attorney General 
of Pennsylvania in the early part of Mr. Reed's Adminis- 
tration, as to the circumstances under which Mr. Jacob 
Rush had become an unsuccessful applicant for office to 
President Reed. Mr. Sergeant thus describes the ex- 
periment and its results: 



''Mr. Rush desired me barely to mention his name, as Attor- 
ney General ; not wishing to make a point of it or to urge it ; but 
merely to signify his willingness to accept, in case of an appoint- 
ment." ********'! Yvas determined to acquit 
myself of my promise, and waited on the President (Mr. Reed) 
to let him know that I was in hopes they had provided them- 
selves with an Attorney General ; and that, if so, I had drawn 
my last indictment. He was polite enough to ask me if I had 



70 

thought of a proper person. Hitherto I had mentioned no one. 
I named Mr. Rush. The President roared out in a peal of 
laughter, and for some time would not believe me in earnest. I 
told him what had passed, hinted that I did not apprehend the 
matter to be new to him, and intimated that the government 
might acquire some new friends by the measure. He said that 
he had no obje6lion to the obliging Doctor Rush and his brother; 
though they very little deserved any favour at his hands from 
their treatment of the friends of the Constitution, but his ob- 
jection was that Mr. Rush was not equal to the task. The 
lawvers on the other side, (I forget the expression but I believe 
it was the Tory lawyers,) will run him down and make him con- 
temptible and us ridiculous. Besides, he has not patience for the 
drudgery of the office; and the first difficult business he meets 
with he will fly in a passion and fling a resignation in our faces. 
He will not hold the office two months. Recollect sir, the man 
who recommends another to office, ought to be answerable for 
him. Will you vouch for Mr. Rush ? Will you be answerable 
for his abilities; for his steadiness?' I really thought that by 
this time I had sufficiently done my errand ; so far as to intimate 
that Mr. Rush was willing to accept the office of Attorney Gen- 
eral. I went no further. We agreed to drop the subject to say 
nothing of it to any one — and this is the first time that I have 
ever fully explained it. It was no very agreeable answer to give to 
Mr. Rush, and he never asked an explanation. It was perhaps 
best as it was." * =5= * * * "Mr. Reed, I know had no 
desire of hearing more on the subje6l, and I am sure I had none; 
for I m.ust confess that I felt foolish enough in doing the errand, 
which made the President's laughing at me the more sensibly felt." 



These, then, are the disappointed and exasperated men 
who became Mr. Reed's accusers in 1782. Sustained as 
his vindication is by the concurrent testimony of Wash- 
ington, and Greene, and Bayard, and Cox, honoured as 



71 

he was to the end of his life, by his fellow-citizens, 
his fellow-soldiers, and the Legislature of his State, I 
have a right on this or any other point of controversy 
to assume t-hat he cannot be condemned on the uncor- 
roborated testimony of two of his most embittered 
political opponents. There are, I repeat, no other wit- 
nesses on this point against him. This chapter of cal- 
umny is closed. 

Having, I hope, candidly collated the testimony on 
the point of the alleged conversation of December, 1776, 
and shown how utterly untrustworthy it is, I proceed to 
consider the other specific accusation — the correspon- 
dence with Count Donop. 

This, also, I should prefer giving in General Cadwal- 
ader's language, but it is not easy to do so, for it is so 
vaguely stated and floats so indistincftly through his 
pages that it eludes the attempt to embody it in words. 
It is rather insinuated than asserted. In substance, how- 
ever, it is far more grave than the one I have been 
considering — as much more so as an overt ad: of 
treason is than a whisper of timidity in the ear of 
a friend. It was this, and I shall not understate it: — 
"that in December, 1776, when Count Donop, the com- 
mander of the Hessian advanced guard, was at or near l^ 
Bordentown, Mr. Reed sent an application for protec- '^ ' 
tion, for himself, his property, and ' an intimate friend, 'and ^^la^ 
that this matter of protection, (thus rather hinted than UJ^ 
clearly stated) was the subje6l of correspondence and nego- 



72 

tiation afterwards, continuing until the reverse at Trenton, 
and Donop's retreat. This, I think, is a fair statement 
of it. It would be doing General Cadwalader injustice, 
to say that this accusation originated with him. It cer- 
tainly did not, but being made by others, it was introduced 
into his pamphlet as a make-weight, cumulative evidence 
of Mr. Reed's imputed criminality. I think I have it 
in my power to show its exadl parentage, and that it, too, 
had its source in personal and political animosity. To 
make the matter intelligible, and to show it had attracted 
Mr. Reed's attention before General Cadwalader as- 
sumed the paternity of it, I will here quote his account 
of the transaction as given in the original pamphlet. 
He says: "As intelligence was of the utmost impor- 
tance both to General Washington and to ourselves, in 
conjunction with Colonel Cox of New Jersey, every ex- 
ertion in our power was made to procure it: This we 
were enabled to effect through the medium of some per- 
sons of Burlington with whom our residence had formed 
an interest. In the course of this business it was neces- 
sary to pass frequently to that place. On one of these 
occasions the inhabitants applied to me for relief from 
the incursions of our troops, especially the galleymen, 
who distressed them without affording an advantage to 
us. As the Hessian patrols came daily to town, I ob- 
served it would be difficult and hardly reasonable to re- 
strain our troops, unless the enemy would submit to the 
like restrictions. It was then suggested that such a pro- 



73 

position should be made to Count Donop, who com- 
manded the British and Hessian troops; and I wrote a 
few unsealed lines to that eflfect, which an inhabitant of 
Burlington undertook to deliver. The whole transac- 
. tion was of a public nature, and in the presence of several 
gentlemen who had accompanied me from Bristol. The 
bearer of my letter found Count Donop on his march 
to the Black Horse, and brought back an open letter 
mentioning that circumstance, and that as soon as his 
situation would admit, he would appoint a place of con- 
ference on the proposition. Having thus far complied 
with the desire of the inhabitants of Burlington, who 
chiefly are of a peaceable quiet charafter, and from their 
inoffensive condud:, as well as the services we were daily 
receiving from some of them, entitled to this office of 
kindness, I returned to Bristol. But that I may close 
this transaction, without interrupting my narrative of 
events, I shall here observe, that I was informed a flag 
came into Burlington a few days after, with an open 
letter from Count Donop, appointing a place of con- 
ference, which was sent over to Bristol and delivered to 
General Cadwalader in my absence. The tide of Ameri- 
can fortune soon after turned; Count Donop retreated 
to Brunswick and I never saw or heard from him after- 
wards." 

From this, as well as a reference in Margaret Morris' 
Diary, I incline to the belief that in it as in the other 
calumny Colonel Cox was implicated, and that he was 

10 



74 

"the intimate friend" so darkly alluded to in this part of 
the Cadwalader pamphlet. He had, and I believe Mr. 
Reed had not, extensive property in New Jersey within the 
enemy's lines, and was closely associated in these errands 
of peril. These being the counter allegations, one of a 
deep plot of secret treason and correspondence with the 
enemy; the other, of an open negotiation for the protec- 
tion of helpless non-combatants; let us see what are the 
proofs adduced. The evidence on what I may call the 
side of the accusation, it will be observed is purely hear- 
say. No human being of his own knowledge can say a 
word. It is traced indirectly to one individual, Mr. 
Robert Lenox, a commissary in the British service, who 
gives no testimony, but who is reported to have com- 
municated the story to his brother, Mr. David Lenox, 
who in turn furnished it to General Cadwalader. The 
certificate is dated March, 1783, four months after the 
Provisional Treaty had been signed, and when, one 
would think, there was no insuperable difficulty in pro- 
curing the dired; evidence from New York, where then 
and for many years afterwards Mr. Robert Lenox lived. 
Perhaps however at a time when the wounds and passions 
of war were fresh, it was perilous to call as a witness against 
a patriot soldier "a Deputy Commissary of Prisoners 
under the British king." It was better to rely on the 
second-hand testimony of Mr., or as he was better 
known even within my recolled:ion. Major Lenox, 
who held some military rank in the American service. 



75 

The testimony was thus hearsay without excijse or neces- 
sity. Mr. Robert Lenox never testified directly, and I 
am glad to note this, because he was a gentlemen of 
high character and unquestioned integrity. That Mr. 
David Lenox was a man of violent passions and, like 
Do(5lor Rush and most of those who came forward to 
testify against Mr. Reed, a bitter partisan of what was 
known as the Anti-Constitutional party, is well known 
in this community. I infer that he, too, had a per- 
sonal grievance, from an entry that I find in the minutes 
of the Executive Council for 1779. 

President Reed to Chief Justice McKean. 

Council Chamber^ August 10, 1 779. 
Sir: 

We have been just informed that David Lenox has grossly 
insulted Robert Smith, Esq., one of the agents of the forfeited 
estates, in the execution of his office. We request you to take 
the most vigorous measures on this occasion, as not only the 
honour, but the interest of the State is deeply concerned. It 
being our full intention to vindicate not only the officers of the 
Government, but support them with our utmost weight and in- 
fluence. We are also informed that one Captain Nichols, or 
Nicholson, a Continental officer had a share in the affray. If 
it should prove so, we trust some other notice will be taken of 
his condudl, besides that of the ordinary course of justice. 
I am sir, with due respeft. 

Your obedient humble servant, 

Joseph Reed, 

President. * 

* Pennsylvania Archives, 1778-9, page 637, 328. This"NichoL" 
was probably the Francis Nichols of the Cadwalader pamphlet. 



76 

Six months after this, it seems Mr. David Lenox 
"obtained permission for an interview with his brother 
at Elizabethtown," and there "was alarmed" by the in- 
formation of Mr. Reed's application to Count Donop 
four years before. He returned to Philadelphia and 
used this story as a weapon of offence against Mr. Reed, 
then President. "I thought it my duty" says he in his 
certificate, "to mention it publicly to prevent further 
power being put in the hands of a man who would make 
a bad use of it." In his own language he * propagated' it. 
The fruit of this ineffedual gossip was, that in June of 
the same year (1780) Mr. Reed with his Council was in- 
vested by the Assembly with what were then considered 
Didatorial powers, the authority to declare martial law, 
and in the autumn he was eleded for the third time 
President of the Executive Council of Pennsylvania. 
In May, 178 1, Mr. Robert Lenox came into the Dela- 
ware with a flag of truce. It was a time of great and 
peculiar peril. The embers of the mutiny of the Penn- 
sylvania line were not cool. The enemy was vigilant 
and adive everywhere. The affairs of the States, and 
especially of Pennsylvania were apparently desperate. 
There was not a dollar in the Treasury to pay ordinary 
expenses. Emissaries were engaged in schemes of as- 
sassination. President Reed being one of the designated 
vidims.* Precautionary measures were necessary, and 

* Governor Livingston's letter, 11 April, 1781. 



77 

Mr. Robert Lenox was refused permission to visit 
Philadelphia and was kept "for four weeks on board ship 
nine miles below the City." Here, again, it seems the 
Donop story was repeated, with the same intimation of 
an unknown associate of crime. Still, it produced no 
effect, and gained no credit. In the interval, Arnold, 
who was Mr. Reed's first open accuser, had become a 
confessed traitor, and no one seemed willing to use the 
weapons he had tried. After a careful search through the 
newspapers of the time, which, until our day, have had no 
rivals in ferocity, I do not find a trace of this fiction. 
It was no doubt to whispers of this form of calumny 
Mr. Reed referred in his pamphlet, in the passage which 
I have quoted.* 

This then is the whole evidence, with the exception 
of Mr. Bancroft's Hessian diary presently to be noticed: 
the repetition by heated and prejudiced men of what they 
supposed had been told them years before, by an avowed 
enemy, an officer in the Royal Army. On the other 



* It may have been with reference to this specific accusation — the 
David Lenox gossip — that Mr. Reed w^rote to General Greene in June 
1 78 1. "After all, and after repeated, gross and illiberal attacks of 
every kind from weakness to treason, for great pains have been taken to 
prove me in the interests of the enemy, I am still in good health and 
spirits, not disgusted with the service of my country though ready to 
give place to any man who can serve it better. The body of the people 
continue my friends because they believe that I am, as I truly am, 
theirs; of this I have given the most unequivocal proof, because I have 
consented to watch for three years that others might sleep — to be poor 
that they might grow rich." zd Life of Reed, page 360. 



hand, putting aside all suggestions of inherent improba- 
bility in a charge "so fathered and so husbanded," I beg 
the candid reader's attention to the direct testimony on 
which the averment rests, that Mr. Reed's written inter- 
course v/ith Count Donop was an innocent and legiti- 
mate intercession for the poor people of Burlington. 

In the first place, there is the testimony of the person 
who carried Mr. Reed's letter to the Hessian Head- 
Quarters, which cannot be impaired by General Cadwala- 
der's unsustained assertion that he was a disaffected man. 
If he were so, he would not have been disqualified for 
the errand. If he were so, he might naturally enough 
seek to make peace for himself, and as naturally seek to 
implicate Mr. Reed and his unknown friend. Mr. Ellis 
survived the Revolution and held positions of dignity 
under the new government. This is his positive, and 
as I have said, to this hour, uncontradicted statement: 

Affidavit by Daniel Ellis, Esq^^, formerly High Sheriff 

and one of the judges of the court of common 

Pleas for Burlington. 

State of N'ew 'Jersey^ Burlington County^ ss. 

Personally came and appeared before me, the subscriber, one 
of the Justices of the Peace in the said county, assigned to 
keep, &c. Daniel Ellis, of the City of Burlington, Esq., 
a person to me well known and worthy of good credit, who 
being duly sworn on the Holy Evangelists of Almighty God, 
deposeth and saith: That some time in the month of Dec- 
ember, in the year of our Lord, one thousand seven hun- 
dred and seventy-six, tne Philadelphia militia lying at Bris- 



79 

tol, the gallies in the river, and the Hessians under Count 
Donop at Bordentown and the Black Horse ; the town of Bur- 
hngton was much distressed by small parties coming in and com- 
mitting excesses on the inhabitants; that Joseph Reed, Esq., then 
Adjutant General of the Continental Army, being occasionally 
in town was applied to by some of the inhabitants, as this depon- 
ent understood, to procure them some relief, and particularly to 
restrain the galley men and militia from coming into the town; 
that in order to efFedl: this it was necessary that the enemy's par- 
ties should be equally restrained, and the said Mr. Reed agreed 
to write a letter to the Count Donop to that effe6l; that this 
deponent went to the office of James Kinsev, Esq., where the 
said General Reed was with Colonel Shee of Philadelphia ; that 
several of the inhabitants were also present; that the said Joseph 
Reed asked this deponent if his son would carry a letter to Count 
Donop for the above purpose ; to which this deponent replied, 
that if it was for the relief of the town he would go himself; 
upon which a letter was immediately writ; that this deponent 
went the next morning with the letter (which to the best of this 
deponent's remembrance was unsealed) and delivered the same 
to Count Donop, who soon after returned an answer in writing, 
which this deponent understood from the said Count Donop was 
to appoint a place for a conference upon the subject, which letter 
this deponent delivered to the said General Reed, (the said Mr. 
Reed and Colonel Shee waiting for his return) ; that some few 
days after an officer came to Burlington with a flag, with a letter 
from Count Donop to the said General Reed ; that the people 
of Burlington being anxious to efFe6l the business, exerted them- 
selves to get the said letter over the river, (the river being then 
full of ice) ; that upon getting over they found that General Reed 
was at Philadelphia, so that the said officer did not see him, nor 
did any intercourse pass between them to this deponent's know- 
ledge or belief; that this transa6lion was of public notoriety, and 
as this deponent verily believes, calculated for the sole relief of 
the inhabitants of said town, then much distressed bv the irreeu- 
larity of the troops and galley men, who came into the town 



8o 

under various pretences and plundered and ill treated the Inhabi- 
tants. And further this deponent saith not. 

Daniel Ellis. 
Sworn before me, the 23d day 

of October, 1783. 

Sam How.* 

I have said that, in adopting and re-producing this 
Donop calumny, General Cadwalader deals with it vague- 
ly as if he was not quite sure of the ground he was 
treading or of the weapon that had been put in his hands. 
The nearest approach to precision is this interrogative 
imputation: "Is it not more than probable that at the 
interview you proposed under cover of serving the in- 
habitants of Burlington you intended to confer with 
Count Donop upon the subjed: of your own interest and 
personal safety?" Here, the insinuation is clear enough 
and I so accept it; and now shall show by evidence under 
General Cadwalader's own hand, not known to Mr. Reed 
when he published his pamphlet, that he was perfedly 
well acquainted with the objed of the proposed confer- 
ence, and that the letter which Count Donop wrote came 
to General Cadwalader and was answered by him. 

* A friend in New Jersey, Mr. James W. Wall, a Senator of the 
United States, of whom I made inquiry as to Mr, Ellis, writes to me: 
"Daniel Ellis spoken of in the Cadwalader pamphlet, by whom your 
grandfather sent the letter to Count Donop with a flag, was not disafeft- 
ed, but, on the contrary, he assisted the cause of the Colonies and was 
in consultation with the patriots. He was a man of considerable landed 
estate, which, of course would have been confiscated if he had been 
what Cadwalader describes; but he was in full enjoyment of it up to 
the day of his death, long after the close of the Revolutionary War." 



8i 

Before doing so, let me refer to another matter inci- 
dentally. When it is sought to disparage my ancestor, 
the Diary of Margaret Morris is cited as authentic even 
when she chronicles the babble of her servant girls. I 
desire to refer the reader to it now for another purpose; 
as the record of what passed under her own observation, 
at a period when her perceptions were quickened by all 
sorts of anxieties, and when she bore willing testimony 
to the kind offices of those with whom — as her diary 
proves — she had no other sympathies. Recalling the 
Donop accusation and Mr. Reed's reply, it should be 
remembered that this diary never saw the light 'till fifty 
years after the accuser and the accused were in their 
graves. It will be found completely to sustain Mr. Reed. 

On the 25th of December is the entry which is mate- 
rial to the question of the real relations to Count Donop. 
It is as follows: 

"December 25th. An officer said to be gone to Bristol, from 
the Count de Nope, with a flag, and offers of letting our town 
remain a neutral post. General Reed at Philadelphia. An ex- 
press sent to him, and we hear he is to meet ihe Count to-mor- 
row at Jno. Antrim's and settle the preliminaries. 

December 26th. Very stormy ; we fear General Reed will 
not meet the Count to-day. A great number of flat-bottom 
boats gone up the river-, we cannot learn where they are going to. 

December 27th. A letter from General Reed to his brother, 
informing him that Washington had had an engagement with the 
regulars on the 25th, early in the morning, taking them by sur- 
prise ; killed 50 and took 900 prisoners — the loss on our side not 
known — not suffered to be public." 



82 

The letter of Donop, thus by a flag publicly forwarded 
to Bristol was, as Mr. Reed in his pamphlet assumed, 
put into General Cadwalader's hands and answered by 
him. A copy of the answer, in Cadwalader's hand- 
writing, (open to the inspedion of any one who has a 
right to ask for it) is in my possession. It is in these 
words : 

'•''Bristol^ December 25, 1776. 
Sir, 

As Colonel Reed is not at this post at present, I opened the 
letter addressed to him. There is no other person here so fully 
acquainted with the business he proposed mentioning to you at 
the interview he requested. I expeft he will return to-morrow 
morning to this post, and he will then request you to name 
another time and place which may be convenient to you. I did 
not receive the flag to-day till half past 10, A. M. 

I am Sir, Sec, &c. 

To Colonel Donop." John Cadwalader. 

General Cadwalader in 1783, when he adopted the hear- 
say accusation of Mr. David Lenox, must have forgotten 
his own letter of 1776 to Count Donop, to which no 
other construction can be given than that the writer knew 
the negotiations to be Innocent. 

Among Mr. Reed's manuscripts, I find the rough 
draught of an Address after the recovery of this letter. 
It shows an intention to make another appeal to the 
public, and incidentally refers to the Cadwalader pamph- 
let as the joint produdion of Dodlor Benjamin Rush, 



83 

Dr. William Smith, (Provost of the College and an in- 
veterate enemy of Mr. Reed) and General Cadwalader. 
This intention was never carried out, and my conviction, 
from a careful study of everything within my reach con- 
nected with this affair, not to speak again of the honours 
and marks of public and private confidence afterwards 
conferred, is, that in its day and generation, this attack 
on Mr. Reed was completely abortive. Nor should it 
be forgotten that, in the long interval of nearly a centu- 
ry since the Revolution, no historical or biographical 
writer, English or American, friend or enemy, with one 
exception, ever has alluded to it. Neither Gordon — cer- 
tainly no friend — nor Stedman, a loyalist, anxious to 
discover flaws in any American's reputation — nor Gray- 
don, nor Ramsay, nor Marshall, nor Adams, nor Sparks, 
nor Washington Irving, nor Lord Mahon, nor any one 
ever found a trace of evidence in support of this wretch- 
ed accusation, or if they did, condescended to stoop and 
follow it. Mr. Galloway and the fugitive loyalists, ex- 
amined in Parliament in 1779, made no allusion to it. 

Writing to me on kindred topics, as far back as 1842, 
Mr. Sparks said: 

''I can say with perfect sincerity and truth, that in my exami- 
nation of documents and papers relating to the Revolution, I 
have seen nothing that could give countenance to charges against 
General Reed. There is surely nothing to this effect in Wash- 
ington's papers, or in those of other general officers which have 
come under my inspection. He had a slight difference with the 
Commander-in-chief in 1776, but this was of short duration, 



84 

and it was after this event that Washington offered him the com- 
mand of the Cavalry ; and he often consulted him on military 
affairs, particularly in regard to the State of Pennsylvania. He 
was appointed a Brigadier General by Congress, and was chosen 
a member of that body from his native state. During a large 
part of the winter at Valley Forge he was present in camp, as 
one of a Committee from Congress for re-organizing the army ; 
and he afterwards held the office of President of Pennsylvania, 
and continued in the public service till near the end of the war. 
Are we now to form so low an opinion of the sagacity and wis- 
dom of the leaders of that day as to believe that they would sus- 
tain in such responsible stations a man whose patriotism they sus- 
pected, and least of all a man whom they looked upon as an 
enemy in disguise? The thing is so incredible in itself that it 
requires the strongest positive proof to clothe it with even a 
shadow of probability ; for we cannot fix so dark a stain upon 
the memory of General Reed without seriously implicating the 
character of the eminent patriots who gave him their support and 
confidence. 

In the public offices in London I have examined all the cor- 
respondence between the British officers in America, and the 
Ministers, during the war. I have no remembrance of seeing 
General Reed's name mentioned in these papers on any occasion." 

Mr. Bancroft wrote from London in 1848: 

"In looking through the archives here which have been opened 
to me with great liberality I have looked for traces of your grand- 
father but as yet have found nothing of much importance. If I 
do, I shall communicate it to you." 

He has, it seems, been more successful since, but he 
had to go to the shameful records of Brunswick and 
Hesse Cassel, to the diaries and note books of mercenary 
strangers, ignorant of the English language — 'Ewalds' 



85 

and 'Bourmeisters' and even Munchauscns (p.2i i)before 
he succeeded in finding what he seems to have craved so 
eagerly. I throw into a note a charaderistic comment 
on Hessian testimony and Hessian conduft, from the 
pen of a friend of Mr. Bancroft, one who stands high 
on the canon of New England.'"'" 

I have spoken of an exception, I mean in English. 
In the year 1787 — two years after Mr. Reed's death, 
there was published in London a pamphlet entitled 
"Remarks on the Travels of the Marquis de Chastellux 



* " The Baroness de Riedesel was a lady deserving all credit when she 
tells what she has seen though she may have put a wrong construftion 
upon it. But the case is not exactly the same as to everything which 
she may have heard. Perhaps she did not understand English pcrfcftly 
well. She was the wife of a person engaged in one of the most nefa- 
rious occupations that human mind and muscle can be put to. He and 
his, had no quarrel with us and ours, but he had been let out for hire by 
the wretch called Eledlor of Hesse Cassel to come hither and make our 
wives, and children widows and fatherless. If he could come on such 
a business, it was very fit that his wife should come with him. Heaven 
knows he stood enough in need of every solace of domestic love. He 
failed in what he came for. He sold his own blood and not ours. We 
caught him and his attendant reptiles and drew their fangs. If women 
whose husbands, fathers, sons, he would have butchered, perhaps had but- 
chered, spat on the ground in sign of anger as his wife passed, it was a 
very unfeminine, discourteous, indecent aft, though it was evidently an 
affront designed for him rather than for her; and something may per- 
haps be pardoned to the rage of those against whom injuries so enor- 
mous, so wicked, being committed because God's providence and man's 
valor dashed the miscreants to the earth in the flush of their abom.inable 
enterprise. Hired stabbers as long as they were in arms — house thieves 
as soon as they were beaten, they had nothing better to claim at the 
hands of meekness itself than mere forbearance and humanity." North 
American Review, July, 1852. 



86 

in North America." There is some slight reason to be- 
lieve that the author of this was either General Arnold, 
or some mercenarv writer whom he had suborned. The 
slander, there, assumes a form, on which I have no other 
comment to make, than that it is the accusation of an 
anonvmous assailant whose testimony is the loosest hear- 
say, and, if it has any direct application, affects a man, 
Mr. Bovres Reed, who, so far as my knowledge extends, 
m.aintained throughout a long life, extending beyond the 
agitations and asperities of Revolutionan," times, an un- 
impeached characier. This writer, whoever he was, says: 

"I join in the Marquis de Chastellux's obser^-ations on Mr. 
Reed. I know in the prosperous situation of the British affairs 
in 1777, (sicj and before the unhappy event at Trenton, that 
Bowes Reed, a brother of Governor Reed, crossed the Delaware 
from Pennsylvania and took with the prescribed forms a British pro- 
te<9ion from a Hessian oScer, I believe Colonel Donop, at the 
same time, he requested one for his brother, the Governor, which 
Colonel Donop declined giving him unless he should appear in 
person. Soon after, Bowes Reed a^ed, himself, in a civil emplov- 
ment in the State of Xew Jersey ; and the Governor, it is well 
known, as the Marquis observes, "published and exaggerated the 
offers that were made him by Governor Johnson, and attained 
his end of plaring a leading part in the countr}'." pp. 29, 3c.* 

* I £rst heard of this form of calumny from my friend, Mr. George H. 
Moore, of Xew York, who was kind enough to send me the extra« I have 
quoted, a copy of the pamphlet being in the Astor Library. In this 
pamphlet, Washington is thns spoken of (page 37 > : ** Mr. Washington 
is hard-hearted and versatile. He assumed the appearance of lenitj- and 
forbearance — He had the power to crush all rivals and hb jealousy 

made him employ it The American buzzard must be stripped 

of his plmnage \^ hether he coarinue a knd jobber in \'irginla 



8? 

If the conjefture has any foundation that this pamph- 
let, either diredlly or indired:ly, emanated from Arnold, 
then it is an impressive truth that, while no contempo- 
rary of Mr. Reed, those who died with him, or those 
who long survived him, ever was willing to countenance 
or repeat this gross charge, his last, as his first open ac- 
cuser was He, who has the ineffable infamy of being the 
one American traitor, to whom every evil impulse 
and habit ot our nature seems to have been traced, and 
in favour of whom not even a literarv paradox has ever 
been suggested. There are no 'Historic Doubts' about 
Mr. Reed's worst apparent enemy, Benedict Arnold. 

I am wrong in speaking of Arnold, as Air. Reed's 
last accuser, for, on this point, Mr. George Bancroft, at 
the end of more than half a centurv, has taken up the 
thread of calumny — He finds it in the dark archives 
of Hesse Cassel. 

Mr. Bancroft ostentatiously adduces, as proof of Mr. 
Reed's infidelity, a mutilated extract from what, he des- 
cribes, as a 'Diarv' of Count Donop, the Hessian com- 
mander of the advanced posts in New Jersey in Decem- 
ber, 1776. He prints it, in the original, in a note to page 
229 of his Ninth Volume. He gives no translation (^as 
I shall) possibly because he was conscious that, in plain 

or the President of Congress is to me indifferent." At page 53 he 
speaks of " the aftive enterprising Arnold, and the Frenchified Wash- 
ington."" My impression is that the pamphlet was writrcn bv some 
fugitive of the Charles Lee school, or, which is probable, though prin- 
ted abroad, written in Philadelphia, where the chief disciples lived. 



88 

English, it amounted to nothing at all. There is always 
an ominous mystery in a foreign language which Mr. 
Bancroft does not hesitate to avail himself of. 

Before I notice this subject in detail, let me allude to 
the view taken of such * historical' evidence, by one 
Mr. Bancroft will hardly venture to discredit, and whom, 
rather ostentatiously, in his Preface he describes as his 
"friend" the late Jared Sparks. I have some doubts as 
to the extent of this friendship, but let that pass. 

In 1864, Mr. Sparks, always alive to such matters, 
wrote to me: 

*' I am told that Mr. Bancroft has procured a copy of Do- 
nop's Journal. I should put no confidence in Donop's im- 
pressions or inferences unless sustained by the positive testimony 
of some written communication from General Reed. This is 
not likely to be produced. Donop might imagine motives which 
had no foundation in reality." 

I will now show that even Donop did not imagine 
anything of the kind. 

Mr. Bancroft thus introduces the Diary, which is to 
prove so much: "Diary kept in Donop's command, 
written by himself or one of his aids. The narration is 
very minute and exact," (page 217) Again he says, 
(page 229) "The Donop Diary, which is remarkably 
precise, full and accurate, alludes to Colonel Reed as 
having actually obtained a protection. This statement 
though made incidentally is positive and unqualified." 
Then follows the Hessian extract. 



89 

The reader will be surprised to learn, and to see, for I 
shall quote the very words in English, and Mr. Ban- 
croft will not impugn the accuracy of the translation, 
that Count Donop, admitting the Diary to be his, made 
no such statement; but in fact alludes to the story as 
gossip at his Head-Quarters which he did not 'listen to,* 
and records it in connection with other matters which, we 
know, are utterly without foundation in truth. 

I cite every word in the Donop Diary relating, directly 
or indirectly, to Mr. Reed.* There are four entries 
of the kind. 

On the 2oth December, the Diary says: 

''December 20th. — Colonel Von Donop to day received by a 
flag of truce from the Rebel Colonel Reed, Adjutant General 
of Washington, a letter in which he, by authority of General 
Washington, proposed to have on the following day an interview 
with Colonel Donop on account of Burlington, as this place in 
the present situation was much exposed to both sides. It was 
left to Colonel Donop to determine time and place for such an 
interview. He answered immediately that his present situation 
did not permit him to leave his post. At the same time the let- 
ter of Colonel Reed was communicated, in which he proposed an 
interview about Burlington, and the answer given thereto ; it was 
not to be presumed that the Rebels would try to hold Mount 
Holly and declare Burlington a neutral place, because from the 
small island near Bristol they could bombard Burlington with six 
pounders, while Mount Holly could be taken any time, if it was 
our pleasure to do so." 

* It is due to Mr. Bancroft to say that, at my request made after the 
appearance of the 9th Volume, he sent me his Donop Note Book. 
I am thus enabled to give further extrafts. 



90 

"December 25th. — To day a flag of truce was sent by Colonel 
Donop to Burlington offering to Colonel Reed the interview 
asked for as to that town, but an answer from Colonel Cadwala- 
der that Reed was not there and was not expe6led to return before 
the next morning, he therefore would ask him to appoint another 
time and place for the interview." 

All this Is the record of what actually did take place, 
with the addition that it was done "by the authority 
of General Washington." I now come to the intermediate 
entry which I give, verbatim^ and in English, and which 
Mr. Bancroft has the assurance to say is "precise," 
"full," "accurate," "positive" and "unqualified." 

"December 21st. — Colonel Donop reported to General Grant 
that, notwithstanding it had been his intention to attack ('pay a 
visit to') General Putnam, he had desisted from such an enter- 
prise after meeting Colonel Blork and Lieutenant Colonel Ster- 
ling at Mount Holly, and had received trustworthy information 
that the enemy had no more magazines this side the Delaware. 
It would not therefore be worth while to fatigue the troops who 
were already worn out and ragged. Moreover, It would be im- 
possible for the troops to reach Cooper's Creek otherwise than 
by a circuitous route and muddy roads, for the bridges had all been 
destroyed. As his line was already extended from Bordentown 
to Black Horse, fourteen miles, he did not think it advisable to 
extend it further, and the less so because Rhall's Brigade was 
almost daily alarmed on both flanks." 

So far what he says is pretty near the truth. Now for 
the camp gossip which Donop was unwilling to listen to, 
and I beg the reader to observe that the portion in pt^- 
MUHV, v/hich shows that it was discredited hearsay, is 
carefully suppressed by Mr. Bancroft. 



91 

" The reports about the enemy were so confused that he would not 
listen any more to them. Nevertheless^ he would report that it was 
reported to him that during his stay at Mount Holly on the igth inst. 
lOOO men^ via Haddonfie Id and "j 00 via Aloarestou'n^ had been march- 
ing against Mount Holly for the purpose of attacking the two bat- 
talions at the Black Horse^ {that) General Mifflin had advanced with 
one corps on the route leading to Moorestown to the bridge three miles 
from Mount Holly ^ but had done nothing except to destroy the bridge 
entirely; (that) the Colonel Reed having received a prote6lion, had 
come to meet General Mifflin and had declared that he did not in- 
tend any longer to serve ; whereupon Mifflin is said to have treated 
him very harshly and even to have called him a damned rascal." 

It is not surprising that Mr. Bancroft shrank from 
putting this trash in English, for it is very certain, and 
he knows it well, that it is a perfect cluster of false re- 
ports. On the 19th, 20th and 21st December, no force 
had advanced or was advancing via Haddonfield or from 
ary other diredion. Neither Mifflin, nor Putnam, nor 
any one had crossed the river, nor ever did cross the river 
till this chapter of adventure was closed. Count Donop 
treated these stories as idle tales which, while he or his aid 
noted, he did not listen to or believe. And yet, the 
American 'Historian of the Revolution,' picks out the 
one vague slander on his own countryman, and prints 
it as truth, suppressing the context which describes it as 
mere rumour, and a discredited rumour too ! It would 
be a departure from the tone which should charadlerise 
historical discussion were I to describe in fitting terms 
mv sense of this literary enormity.* 

* There were other rumours floating around Donop's quarters and 
recorded in his Diary, which Mr. Bancroft does not reproduce. For 



92 

Without prolonging this unpleasant criticism, it 
should be noticed that General Mifflin, who is clumsily 
dragged into this scandal by the purveyors of false 
intelligence, was never called as a witness in 1782-3, that 
he lived long after, and with all his defeds of charac- 



example, in his Ninth Volume page 240, he says : " That day the term 
of enlistment of the Eastern regiments came to an end; to these veterans, 
the same conditions as Pennsylvania allowed to her undisciplined volun- 
teers were offered if they would remain six weeks longer ; and, with 
one voice, they instantly gave their word to do so, making no stipu- 
lation of their own." The Diary says :" December 24. Likewise also 
the New England men, or so called Yankees, have declared tiieir deter- 
mination on January I, when their enlistment is at end, to go home. 
They have resolved to serve no more outside the limits of their own 
country." Now, which tells the truth, the History or the Diary ? Is it 
only when a Southern man, for a Pennsylvanian was so regarded then, is 
to be maligned, that Mr. Bancroft quotes Hessian slander.? True to his 
origin, he is reserved as to New England. There is another suppressed 
passage in the * Donop Diary ' which is material as showing further 
how little value there is in second-hand Hessian gossip. On the z8th 
of December, Donop reports to General Grant: "He has cause to 
regret that Colonel Sterling should be taken away from him, inasmuch 
as he shall thus lose not only a trusty friend, but also an interpreter of 
the English orders, as he himself is not sufficiently versed in that 
language, and had mainly to guess at the contents of the orders he re- 
ceived from General Grant, and, as regards the news which from time to 
time was brought in by the inhabitants, he had the same difficulty^ 

The ' diary ' shows Donop to have been an adlive and vigilant officer, 
who thought it his duty to jot down and communicate all he heard, 
credible or incredible. Were I disposed to make minute criticisms, I 
might express a doubt whether, after all, the Colonel Reed of the Diary 
of the 2 1 St December, was my ancestor, for according to Mr. Bancroft 
there were other Colonel Reeds. There was (page 246) ' the New 
England Reed,' 



93 

ter, and Revolutionary history shows they were many, 
he never condescended to fling calumny on the dead.'-" 

In dismissing this subjecft, I beg the reader to ob- 
serve that I have not condescended to dwell on the 
astounding fad, that, an American writer, who, on one 
page, records the brutality of these alien mercenaries, 
(^plundering ever since they landed in the country') for 
so, Mr. Bancroft describes the Germans, officers and men; 
on another, should ostentatiously cite a Hessian Colonel, 
or a Hessian Colonel's clerk, as a witness against his 
own countryman. The Hessian himself, as we have 
seen, did not believe the calumny which has been 



* Mifflin died in 1800. My father, son of General Reed, was his 
friend, and the executor of his will. On the trial of Josiah Bright before 
Judge Washington in 1809, as reported by Lloyd, Mr. Ingersoll, the 
elder, in his speech for the defendant said : " In the Ninth Volume of 
the Journal of Congress, page 267, 1 observe that six States were against 
the claim of jurisdiftion on the part of the Court of Appeal of Con- 
gress, and I find the name of Jefferson on the side of the question, for 
which I have the honour to contend ; I add, last but not least, the names 
of Reed and Bryan. The patriot heart will joy at recollefting them ; 
the former a wonderfully quick penetrating genius ; the latter probably 
with the greatest fund of information of any man in the United States. 
I trust it will not detraft from the weight of Mr. Reed's professional 
charafter that he was a soldier also in the war of the Revolution, and 
that the splendid military manoeuvre adopted by Washington at Tren- 
ton, by which the fruits of a former viftory were secured, and a second 
attained at Princeton, was of his suggestion. This information I re- 
ceived from General Mifflin who was himself a member of the coun- 
cil of war." My professional brethern know well who Mr. Ingersoll 
was — one of the leaders of the Ancient Bar — he was President Reed's 
intimate and valued friend. Surely his testimony is at least as trust- 
worthy as Mr. Bancroft's Hessian hearsay. 



94 

raked up from the refuse of his camp. I hesitate, in 
conclusion, to ask the question and yet it is an obvious 
one — Does any one for a moment imagine that, had an 
officer of Mr. Reed's rank (Washington's Adjutant 
General) taken a prote(5lion or asked for one, or done 
anything of the kind, it would have remained a secret 
to this day ? A protection was never granted without an 
antecedent oath, which was always matter of record. 

Having thus, with what success it is not for me to say, 
disposed of the detailed evidence by which these cal- 
umnies have been propped up, I proudly turn to 
that, which after all is most conclusive — the well at- 
tested record of Mr. Reed's aftive life, on which has 
been thrown (a severe test for any public man) the strong, 
clear light of his domestic correspondence; the letters to 
and from his wife, and brothers, and kinsmen, and per- 
sonal friends, for, in the biography which I published, I 
withheld no letter, however confidential and familiar, from 
any other reason than to avoid prolixity, or a fear of giv- 
ing pain to the living by the revival of transient words 
or thoughts of asperity. That record is the best proof 
of my ancestor's public and private virtue — his patriot- 
ism in the highest and purest sense. 

And to no part of the story of his Revolutionary 
service, do I more confidently refer than to that which 
tells what he, and those near and dear to him, did and 
suffered in those days of especial disaster, trial and vie- 



9S 

tory, when It now seems, if posthumous libellers are to 
be credited, detraftion was busiest with his fame; I mean 
the interval from the fall of Fort Washington to the re- 
treat of the enemy to New Brunswick — from November, 
1776, to January, 1777. With a brief reference to this, 
made more interesting by one or two letters which 
have come into my possession since the publica- 
tion of my book in 1847, ^ conclude this effort at 
vindication. 

After the fall of Fort Washington and the retreat 
of the American army through Eastern New Jersey, it 
seemed probable, in view of the advanced season and 
difficulties of transportation, (and within my recolledion 
the winter roads north of Trenton and Princeton were 
practically impassable) that the Raritan would be the ex- 
treme limit of the British advance, and that the country 
between it and the Delaware would be a sort of neutral 
or border territory. As late as the 3rd of December, 
the enemy had not crossed the Raritan. Mr. Reed had 
been previously despatched to the fugitive Legislature of 
New Jersey to show the necessity of reinforcements. 'The 
critical situation of our affairs' wrote Washington to Gov- 
ernor Livingston, on the 23d of November, 1776 *and 
the movements of the enemy make some further and im.- 
mediate exertions absolutely necessary. In order that you 
may have the fullest representation and form a perfed: 
idea of what is now necessary, I have desired Colonel 



9^ 

Reed to wait on you and must refer you to him for 
particulars,' This duty, he had faithfully performed, and 
from Burlington, where his family then was and where 
Governor Livingston and his Assembly had been in ses- 
sion, Mr. Reed wrote his letter to Congress of the 28th 
of November, 1776, resigning his office of Adjutant Gen- 
eral.* It is in these words: 

To THE President of Congress. 

Burlington^ New 'Jersey^ November 28, 1 776. 
Sir, 

Near three months ago, I laid before the committee of the 
honourable Congress, appointed to form and regulate the new 
army, my intentions of relinquishing the office of Adjutant Gen- 
eral at the close of the campaign. The reasons then assigned, 
and which I should intrude upon your time to repeat, appeared to 
me so weighty that I conceived it a duty to the public and my- 
self to represent them in the earliest and fullest manner. 

As the season will not admit of further military operations 
(unless the enemy should attempt an incursion into this province 
to harass and distress us, in which case I shall most cheerfully 
devote myself to any further service) I beg leave to enclose the 
commission with the highest sense and warmest acknowledgments 
of the favour done me. 

I am Sir, your most obedient and very humble servant, 

Jos. Reed. 

This letter, though dated on the 28th probably was not 
sent till the 30th. It had scarcely gone when a message 
was received from the Commander-in-Chief, that ''invited 
by the broken state of our troops, the enemy had changed 

* Governor Livingston's Letter, 27th Nov. 1776. Force, p, 870. 



97 

their plan and Vvcre rapidly advancing on the Delaware." 
On the first of December, Washington wrote to this 
effed; to Governor Livingston, and it was probably by 
the bearer of that letter the message was sent to the 
Adjutant General. Mr. Reed did not hesitate, but in- 
stantly wrote — and it arrived in season — the following to 
Congress: 

To THE President of Congress. 

Burlington^ New Jersey^ December 2, I'J'jd. 
Sir, 

When I did myself the honour of addressing you on the 30th 
ult., I had not the least idea that the enemy would at this season 
attempt a progress thro' the country. It seems but too probable 
that I was mistaken. I therefore beg; leave to retra61: the res's- 
nation I then made, and, as soon as I have disposed of Mrs. Reed 
and my children, will attend my office in the army until a succes- 
sor is appointed or operations shall cease beyond all doubt. 

Flattering myself that an uninterrupted attention for six months 
and my condudl during that time will incline you to the most 
favourable construftion of this measure which proceeded from 
our unacquaintance of the state of things, 

I am with great respeil. 

Your most obedient and very hum.ble servant. 

Jos. Reed.* 

* Commenting on this, Mr. Bancroft says v/ith more than ordinary 
venom: "(Reed) shrunk from his duty and seeking definitively to quit 
the army, sent back his commission to the President of Congress. But 
the prospeft of unsparing censure, and a cold rebuke from Washington, 
who had seen proof ot his disingenuousness, drove him, at the end of four 
days, to retraft his resignation," p. 198. From all the evidence accessi- 
ble to me and the statement of General Reed himself, I affirm this state- 
ment of a 'rebuke' from Washington, to be utterly groundless. If Mr. 

7 



98 

The resignation of course was not accepted. The in- 
tentions of the enemy were rapidly developed, and on 
the 8th of December, Mr. Reed, having returned to 
Headquarters, wrote to the President of Congress: 

Sir, 

We set out this morning for Princeton. In our way we met 
a messenger with the enclosed. The General ordered me back 
upon some necessary business. He has gone forward to Prince- 
ton where there are about three thousand m.en with which I fear 
we will not be able to make a stand. The Jersey militia are so few 
that no dependence can be placed on them. The militia of Penn- 
sylvania, except from the city, have not appeared and they are 
very confused, the time not having admitted of any arrangement. 
In short, sir, from all circumstances I am inclined to think no op- 
position will be given 'till we cross the Delaware. Our whole 
force if colle6i:ed will not exceed six thousand, and they are di- 
minishing every moment by desertion. 

I can get no other paper than this — you will please to excuse 
it as well as the hurry of my letter. 

I am, with miuch respe6l and regard, your most obedient hum- 
ble servant. Jos. Reed. 

Bancroft has any written or oral testimony as to it, let him produce it. 
If he has not, then his rhetorical assumption of such a faft, it seems to 
me, comes very close to the edge of wanton misrepresentation. The 
message which Mr. Reed describes had no rebuke in it, hot or cold. 
Washington's letter of the 30th does not allude to the subjedl. Slow 
to believe that Mr. Bancroft would invent this 'cold rebuke,' but, at 
the same time, confident that no such thing existed, I wrote an enqui- 
ry to my friend, the venerable Peter Force of Washington, whose answer 
is this : * In reply to your questions in regard to the resignation of Gen- 
eral Reed, in 1776, I might have answered it off hand, but I preferred to 
take time and make an examination. Beside the letters you referred to, 
I have found no letter or memorandum of General Washington, or 
any one else, on the subjeft of General Reed's resignation, in Decem- 
ber, 1776. Ms. letter, 31 December, 1866. 



99 

Mr. Reed was then sent to Philadelphia to urge ac- 
tivity in reinforcements, and with the news of the retreat 
of the Americans to the right bank of the Delaware. 
From that time, 'till the I2th, he was either with the 
Commander-in-Chief, or on such detached special duty 
as their confidential relations and Mr. Reed's thorough 
acquaintance with the neighbouring region imposed on 
him. It must have been during one of these expedi- 
tions that he wrote to Washington the following hurried 
letter, which I had not seen in 1 847, but which I find in 
Mr. Force's Archives; my impression is that it was 
written at either Newtown or some point above Trenton. 

Reed to Washington. 

December^ 12, 1776. 
Dear Sir, 

The gentlemen of the Light Horse who went into the Jerseys 
have returned safe. They proceeded into the country 'till they 
met an intelligent person directly from Trenton, who informed 
them that General Howe was then with the main body of his 
army; that the flying army, consisting of the Light Infantry and 
grenadiers, under Lord Cornwallis, still lay at Pennytown and there 
was no appearance of a movement. That they are certainly 
waiting for boats from Brunswick ; that he believed they would 
attempt a landing in more places than one ; that their artillery park 
has thirty pieces of cannon — all field pieces. They are collect- 
ing horses from all parts of the country. Some movement was 
intended yesterday morning but laid aside ; but what it was and 
why they did not proceed he does not know. I sent off a per- 
son to Trenton yesterday morning with directions to return by 
Pennytown. I told him to go to and get what intelli- 
gence he could from him. He is not yet returned. I expect. 



lOO 

him every moment. I charged him to let know that, 

if he would watch their motions and could inform us of the time 
and place of their proposed landing, he should receive a large re- 
ward for which I would be answerable. I cannot but think their 
landing will be between this and Trenton, for these reasons : 

ist. That Lord Cornwallis with that part of the army which 
he will lead, keeps at Pennytown, within four miles of the river. 

2nd. They will by that means avoid the ferry at Shamony, 
and the fords which, at this season of the year, must be disagree- 
able to the troops. 

y^. They will derive much more assistance from the country 
which is but too favourable to them. 

4th. They know our principal artillery is near Trenton and 
the passage through the woods to Bristol must be unfavourable 
to them. On the road above they will find all clear and the 
distance nearly the same. 

The river is not and I believe cannot be sufficiently guarded. 
We must depend upon intelligence of their motions ; to obtain 
which no expense must be spared. If it were possible to fix 
signals answering to their different movements, that would be 
most speedy and effectual. The militia are crossing over in par- 
ties. I fear they do not mean to return. I do not know by 
whose orders, but if their Colonels have power to give permis- 
sian, in a little time there will be none left. I do not like the 
condition of things at and above Coryell's Ferry ; the officers are 
quite new and seem to have little sense of the necessity of vig- 
ilance. I shall wait a little to see my man return, and then, un- 
less your Excellency think my stay here of service, I will return 
to Headquarters. I enclose you a proclamation which I got 
from the other side. I suppose it is one of the same kind Gen- 
eral Dickerson saw. Mr. Moylan desires me to mention to your 
Excellency the propriety of his meeting General Lee to inform 



lOl 

him of the state of things, and wishes to know your plan by the 
return of the Light Horse. 

I am in haste, most respe<Slfully, Dear Sir, 

Your obedient, humble, servant, 

Jos. Reed. 

On the 14th, news was received of Lee's capture, and, 
some time in that week, Mr. Reed was sent to Bristol to 
assist and counsel with General Cadwalader, whose 
command consisted mainly of Pennsylvania, indeed 
Philadelphia militia — his and Mr. Reed's townsmen 
and neighbours. This is a simple and natural explana- 
tion of the arrangement. The distance from Head- 
Quarters was very short, nine miles when at Newtov/n, 
and ten if opposite Trenton; if Doctor Rush is to 
be credited, the Adjutant General being in constant con- 
nexion with the Commander-in-Chief. That General 
Cadwalader, writing in 1783, hinted a sinister objecfl in 
Mr. Reed's joining him, is very true, but it is one of the 
worst specimens of unproved insinuation with which his 
pamphlet abounds. Mr. Reed did assist him actively and 
faithfully, and I have little doubt, from the evidence ac- 
cessible to me, that the high spirited soldier of 1776, for 
such was General John Cadwalader, never harboured the 
thought or suspicion, or to his nearest friend whispered 
the insinuation which fell from the tongue of the angered 
partisan of 1778 and '83. While at Bristol, on the 22d 
of December, Mr. Reed wrote to Washington what I 
may describe as the *Pomroy' letter, [supra, page 43,) to 



I02 

which and to what I have said of it, I specially refer the 
reader. It's first effect was that Reed was sent for to 
Head-Quarters and the outlines of the plan of attack on 
Trenton communicated to him, and at the same time, it 
is said, a letter was written to the same purport to Cadwal- 
ader. Then followed, with General Cadwalader's full 
concurrence, the night visit of Mr. Reed and Colonel 
Cox to Griffin at Mount Holly — and then, probably 
on their return to camp at Bristol, came Washington's 
remarkable letter of anxious inquiry and affectionate con- 
fidence, addressed to "Joseph Reed, Esq. — or in his ab- 
sence, John Cadwalader, Esq., only" — in its fading but 
still clear characters, now before me, and which, tho' often 
printed before, I cannot resist the temptation to re- 
produce. It was to these two friends only — friends of 
his, and as he thought, of each other — that he told the 
perilous secret of his necessities and his intentions, 
and of the very hour, almost the minute, he meant 
to execute his plan of adventure. 

Camp above Trenton Falls^ i'}^d December ^\']']b. 

Dear Sir, 

The bearer is sent down to know whether your plan was at- 
tempted last night, and if not, to inform you that Christmas day, 
at night, one hour before day, is the time fixed upon for our 
attempt on Trenton. For heaven's sake keep this to yourself, as 
the discovery of it may prove fatal to us. Our numbers, sorry 
I am to say, being less than I had any conception of; but neces- 
sity, dire necessity, will — nay must justify any attempt. Prepare 



and in concert with Griffin attack as many of their posts as you 
possibly can, with a prospe6t of success. The more we attack 
at the same instant, the more confusion we shall spread, and the 
greater good will result from it. 

If I had not been fully convinced before of the enemy's designs, 
I have now ample testimony of their intentions to attack Phila- 
delphia as soon as the ice will afford the means of conveyance. 

As the Colonels of the Continental regiments might kick up 
some dust about command, unless Cadwalader is considered by 
them in the light of a Brigadier, which I wish him to be, I de- 
sired General Gates, who is unwell and applied for leave to go to 
Philadelphia, to endeavour, if his health would permit him, to call 
and stay two or three days at Bristol in his way. 

I shall not be particular. We could not ripen matters for our 
attack before the time mentioned in the first part of this letter. 
So much out of sorts, and so much in want of everything are 
the troops under Sullivan, &c. Let me know by a careful ex- 
press the plan you are to pursue. The letter herewith sent, 
forward on to Philadelphia. I could wish it to be in, in time for 
the Southern post's departure, which will be, I believe, by eleven 
o'clock to morrow. 

I am, dear sir. 

Your most obedient servant, 

Geo. Washington. 

P. S, I have ordered our men to be provided with three days 
provisions, ready cook'd ; with which and their blankets, they are 
to march ; for if we are successful, which Heaven grant, and 
other circumstances favour, we may push on. I shall direct 
every ferry and ford to be well guarded, and not a soul suffered 
.to pass without an officer going down with the permit. Do 
the same with you. 

To Joseph Reed, Esq^, 

or, in his absence, to 

John Cadwalader, Esq^, only, at Bristol.* 

* I am unable to estimate the logic by which it is assumed that this 
letter was so addressed because Washington thought Cadwalader might be 



lO-t 



When this letter came, it was known at Bristol that 
Griffin had retired and that there was no hope of con- 
cert from him. It was then determined that, while Cad- 
walader matured a movement in aid of Washington in 
the neighbourhood of Burlington, Reed should go to 
Philadelphia and persuade Putnam, who was in com- 
mand, to cross at Cooper's Ferry. This was on the 
night of the 24th, and from Philadelphia, Mr. Reed 
v/rote to Cadwalader the next morning: 



"General Putnam has determined to cross the river with as 
many men as he can colle<?t, which he says will be about five 
hundred ; he is now mustering and endeavouring to get Pro6lor's 
company of artillery to go with them. I vi^ait to know what 
success he meets with and the progress he makes — but at all 
events I shall be with you this afternoon."* 



absent. It^would then have been to 'John Cadwalader^ Esq., or in his 
absence to Joseph Reed, Esq.,' and in the text * Cadv/alader' would not 
have been spoken of in the third person. It is not at all material. I 
am tempted to add a brief extrafl from Washington's earnest letter to 
Congress, the next day, to show what troops he relied on, in this the hour 
of agony, if not despair. "By the departure of these regiments (Lee's 
and Gates's corps) I shall be left with five from Virginia, Smallwood's 
from Maryland, a small part of Rawlins' and Hand's from Penns'shania, 
part of Ward's from Conne^icut, and the German battalion, amounting 
in the whole at this time to from 1400 to 1500 efl'eftive men. This 
handful and such militia as may choose to join me, will then compose 
our army." I find no allusion to the 'Mariners from Marblehead.' 
Mr. Bancroft quotes the language of Washington's letter of the 23d, 
but takes pains to avoid saying it was addressed to Reed. 

''' The rest of this letter has never been printed. The extradl I find 
in the Cadwalader pamphlet. 



I05 

This was but doubtful encouragement — Five hundred 
men, with or without artillery, was all that could be expec- 
ted, and their movements were uncertain. — Well might 
Mr. Reed say what he did, years afterwards in his pam- 
phlet (page 1 8,) and well might he send, for it was his 
duty to tell the exad: truth, * discouraging accounts' to 
Washington, though, from the date of the letter from 
McKonkey's Ferry (25th, 6 P. M.,) it is probable the 
news there referred to, related to Griffin's withdrawal, and 
not to Putnam's delay. "At all events," wrote Mr. Reed, 
"I shall be with you this afternoon," and he kept his 
word, and was at Bristol and the Ferry taking part in 
the ice-blocked passage of that winter night, the incidents 
of which and of the adventurous advance to Burlington, 
have already been described. Whilst the troops below 
were ineffecflually struggling with the elements, Washing- 
ton had crossed above and by noon of the next day 
(26th) had consummated his vidory at Trenton, The 
sound of the firing was heard, but the news of the 
precise result did not reach Bristol whither Mr. Reed 
had returned, 'till some time on the 27th, or at night 
of the 26th. The rest of the narrative of those days 
has been elsewhere given, and as the objed: of what I 
now write is merely defensive, I shall not repeat it, the 
end being the pursuit of the enemy almost to the banks 
of the Hudson; in every step and movement of which 
Mr. Reed shared with Cadwalader, under the eye of 

Washington. 

H 



io6 

Accident has thrown in my way the following letters, 
which have never been published, and which are not 
without interest. 

They need but a word of explanatory comment. 

It will be recolled:ed that, in Mr. Reed's pamphlet 
of 1782, in reference to his visit to Philadelphia, at mid- 
night of the 24th of December, this passage occurs: 

"I lay down for a few hours, and when the morning came, a 
number of gentlemen, among whom I particularly recolleil Col- 
onel Moylan, Mr. James Mease and Mr. R. Peters, came, and 
anxiously enquired into our situation and prospects. They can 
tell whether despondency or animation, hope or apprehension, 
most prevailed, and whether the language I held was not the very 
reverse of despair; the former may remember, that when urged 
to stay and partake of a social entertainment provided for the 
day, I declared my resolution that no consideration should prevent 
my return to the army immediately ; and that in a private con- 
versation I pressed him to do the same, lest he should lose a 
glorious opportunity to serve his country and distinguish himself. 
I v/as not at liberty to be perfectly explicit, but the hint was 
sufficient to a brave officer." 

This 'brave officer' — Stephen Moylan of Pennsylva- 
nia, was one of Mr. Reed's life-long friends. The re- 
colleftions of this friendship, and the allusion in the 
passage I have just cited, tempt me to print the follow- 
ing very charadteristic letter. 

Colonel Moylan to Robert Morris. 

Headquarters^ Morristown^ 'January 7, 1777. 
Dear Sir, 

I thank you, my good friend, for your favour of the first. What 
a change in our affairs, since the date of that letter. Are you 



loy 

not all too happy ? By Heavens, it was the best piece of gen- 
eralship I ever read or heard of. An enemy, within musket shot 
of us, determined, and only waiting for daylight, to make a vig- 
ourous attack. We stole a march, got to Princeton, defeated, 
and almost totally ruined, three of the best regiments in the 
British service ; made all their schemes upon Philadelphia, for 
this season, abortive ; put them into such a consternation, that 
if we only had five hundred fresh men, there is very little doubt 
but we should have destroyed all their stores and baggage, at 
Brunswick, of course, oblige them to leave the Jerseys, (this 
they must do) and probably have taken poor Naso.* What 
would our worthy General have given for 500 of the fellows 
who were eating beef and pudding at Philadelphia on that day? 
But let us not repine — it was glorious. The consequence must 
be great. America will — by G — d — it must be free ! 

I never mentioned my desire to the General of engaging in 
the cavalry. Your letter, I believe, gave hira the first intima- 
tion. I put it into his hands to show him your gift of divination. 
Pray, how could you suppose, that our next blow must be at 
Princeton, but I recollect you did not then know we were at- 
tacked at Trenton. How your heart went pitipat, when that 
news reached you, and what an agreeable feeling you must all 
have had when you heard of their facing right about. But that 
feeling is very short of those which we all enjoyed when pur- 
suing the flying enemy. It is unutterable — inexpressible. I 
know I never felt so much like one of Homer's deities before. 
We trod on air — it was a glorious day. Pray send us back those 
runaways that left us these some days past. We are really weak, 
strengthen our hands, and we will not leave an enemy out of gun- 
shot from their ships. I will not tire you further than telling 
you what I have often done, that 

I am sincerely. Sir, yours. 
To Robert Morris, Esq. Stephen Moylan. 

* Charles Lee. 



io8 

Mr. Bancroft of course has a fling at Colonel Moy- 
lan. The reader cannot fail to be struck with the 
number and virulence of his minute defamations. It is a 
sort of eruptive disease with him. He assails, besides Mr. 
Reed passim, Greene pp. 40, 174, 184-5, ^y 9' I93"4> 5j 
426-8, Dickinson pp. 46, 199, Mercer p. 113, Smallwood 
p. 123, Lambert Cadwalader p. 190, St. Clair p. 246, 
Mifilin pp. 39, 459, Armstrong p. 106, Sullivan p. 397. 
Moylan and Wayne p. 230, 456, every one, except Greene 
from Rhode Island and Sullivan from New Hampshire, 
born south of the Hudson. Wayne's offence to Mr. 
Bancroft may be his letter to Gates of the first of 
December, 1776, printed in Mr. Force's Archives. 
"Whilst I am writing, an express brings advice of Fort 
Washington being in the hands of the enemy, and the 
whole garrison consisting of 2000 men killed or prison- 
ers. My heart bleeds for poor Washington. Had he 
but Southern troops, he would not be necessitated so often 
to fly before an enemy who, I fear, has lately had but too 
much reason to hold us cheap." Bancroft, speaking of 
General Ewing, says : " He did not even make an attempt 
to cross at Trenton." Washington, writing to Congress, 
says: "The quantity of ice was so great that, though 
General Ewing did every thing in his power to efl'ed: it, 
he could not get over.""" 

A fortnight later, Mr. Reed, then probably ading as 

* Works of Washington, Vol. 4, page 247. 



I09 

Adjutant General till his successor was named — and at all 
events at Headquarters, wrote the following semi-official 
letter to Philadelphia, which has this interest, that it shows 
how kindly, how generously, and I am quite willing to 
say, how justly he thought and wrote of his fellow-sol- 
diers, of some of those who became so soon his bitter 
enemies. 

To Mr. Thomas Bradford, Printer. 
"Sir, 

I am directed by his excellency, General Washington, to for- 
ward to you the enclosed, with a request that they may be print- 
ed in the public papers, with a note that all printers of newspapers 
will re-print them in their several papers — and that you would 
have 1000 copies of each struck off and forwarded to him with 
all possible expedition. The evils they are calculated to remedy 
are of so alarming and increasing a nature that no time is to be 
lost, 

I shall be much obliged to you to remind your father that there 
are two new blankets among his baggage belonging to me. I 
shall be obliged to him to secure them for me if they are to be 
found. 

We have nothing new in this quarter, our parties every day 
harrass the enemy ; yesterday one of them attacked 600 of the 
enemy near Woodbridge, after a warm firing our troops retreated, 
the enemy's number being three times superior. The stormy 
weather will, I fear, give the remainder of the Philadelphia 
militia a very bad march home. The last moved off yesterday, 
having greatly distinguished themselves by their gallant behaviour 
in the field, as well as orderly and soldierlike condu6l in camp. 
All the militia are following their example in annoying the enemy 
every opportunity, so that we hope in a little time they will prove 
a noble support to their country. General Cadwalader has con- 
ducted his command with great honour to himself and the Pro- 
vince, all the field officers supported their characters, their ex- 



I lO 

ample was followed by the inferior officers and men, so that they 
have returned with the thanks and praises of every general officer 
in the army. 

The Light Horse, tho' few in number, have rendered as essen- 
tial service, as in my opinion, the same number of men ever per- 
formed to their country in the same time. They thought no 
duty beneath them, and went through it with a generous disre- 
gard of fatigue and danger, which entitles them to the kindest 
notice and attention of their fellow citizens. We hope that 
some of the artillery officers who have engaged in this temporary 
service may be induced to enter into the Continental army as the 
specimen they have given shows that they may be exceedingly 
useful to their country in a line of service which every day shows 
to be more and more important. 

It might appear invidious to mention names where all have be- 
haved well — but Colonel Morgan, Colonel Nixon, Colonel Cox, 
your old gentleman,* and Major Knox, and Cowperthwaite, cer- 
tainly ought not to pass unnoticed for their behaviour at Princeton. 
Major Meredith would, on many accounts, be a great acquisition 
to the army if he could be prevailed on to engage in the service, 
he has a military turn and, tho' he was diffident of himself, it 
appeared when we came to a6lion that there was not the least 
foundation for it, but quite the reverse. 

I am Sir, with esteem. 

Your most obedient, humble servant, 

Jos. Reed. 
Headquarters^ Morristozun^ 'January 24, 1 777. 

The next month, after more than a year's dispersal, 
Mr. Reed and his family found themselves for a time 
at home in Philadelphia. There are now before 
me two manuscripts, for which I am indebted to a 
kinswoman (alas! now dead) in a distant land, letters 

* The William Bradford who made the affidavit of 1782. Ante. p. 28. 



1 1 1 

from the husband and father, the wife and mother of that 
re-united family, which came into my possession more 
than seventy years after those who wrote them sank into 
their graves, and which I nov/ reprint as homely testimo- 
nials of fidelity and heroism. They are both written to 
Mrs. Reed's brother, Mr. De Berdt of London; for in 
those times, unlike ours, the refined cruelty of prohibit- 
ing correspondence of relatives on different sides of Civil 
War was not resorted to.'-' 

Mr. Reed to Mr. De Berdt. 

Philadelphia^ February 20, 1777. 
Dear Dennis, 

It is not one of the least misfortunes of these unhappy times 
in which our lot is cast, that the intercourse of the nearest rela- 
tions and dearest friends is almost wholly interrupted. Except 
your letter by Lord Howe, and your packet by Israel Morris, 
we have heard nothing from you for almost twelve months. How- 
ever it is no sm.all consolation to us to learn that your prospects 
of business are exceeding good while ours are changed from the 
most prosperous to the most adverse. The war being brought 
to our own door, and carried on with the most inhuman ravage, 
in which age and sex have indiscriminately suffered, has banished 
every idea of law, so that the profession for which it has been 
my earliest study to qualify myself is become entirely useless. 
The family, as well for safety as economy, have been obliged to 
leave Philadelphia, but, unluckily directing its course into the 
Jerseys, which, soon after, the British and Hessian Troops pen- 
etrated ; your mother — sister — five children, were again obliged 
to flv, and are now secluded from all society but among them- 
selves, surrounded with woods and inhabitants of the common 

* I recovered these letters through the kind offices of the grand.- 
daughter of Mr. de Berdt, Mrs. Esther Reed Merriman — Mrs. Merri 
man died near London, in 1862. 



112 

class of country people. I thank God they have experienced 
little distress but what arises from fatigue or apprehension. A 
party of the Hessian Troops came into the town of Burlington 
the next day after they left, and afterwards were within three 
niiles of their retreat. To have been plundered of everything 
they could carry away, and the destruction of what they could 
not, was the least in such case to be expected — but happily the 
American arms at this crisis proved successful; the enemy was 
obliged to evacuate this country, and peace and quiet have been 
restored, but how long it will last none can tell but He who 
knows all things. Your letter by Lord Howe arrived before 
there had been any effusion of blood; it was wrote with a spirit 
and sentiment that would do you honour among the sensible and 
dispassionate. I was then with the army, and after showing it 
to the General, I transmitted it to the Congress, but no notice 
was taken of it. I then waited impatiently for a public disclosure 
of some terms or propositions from Lord Howe and his brother. 
If they had been such as would give my country any security 
against the unlimited powers of your Parliament to deprive us 
of our property at any time and in what proportions they pleased, 
I should have applied myself most earnestly to have brought 
about an accommodation, and if those in power had wantonly or 
wickedlv rejected the proposition, I should have retired from 
the arm.y to a private and obscure station. But no such propo- 
sition being ever made, tho' general professions of kindness and 
justice were profusely given, and being well satisfied in my own 
mind, from a conversation I had with the Adjutant General 
of the British Armv, whom I conducted to and from an inter- 
view with General Washington, that the commissioners had no 
powers to give liberty, peace and safety to this country, I no 
longer hesitated about my duty, but continued with the army the 
whole campaign, and have been in every action except two which 
has happened during the whole summer. I thank God I have en- 
joyed uninterrupted health, and met with no accident. But the 
office I hold not being agreeable to me, and my doing what I 
deemed my duty, having made me many enemies among the in- 



traceable and undisciplined part of our army, I resolved to decline 
it when the campaign was over. In what line I shall hereafter 
move is very uncertain, but the dispute is now advanced to such 
a heighth, and the inhumanity with which it has been conducted 
bv the British Generals has created such an inveteracy between 
the two countries as no {illegible) can efface. The British Nation 
must receive its impression from its officers and friends. They 
have injured us so highly by their ravages, cruelty and insult that 
it is impossible they can ever forgive us, for there is no hatred 
so deadly as that of him who has injured another, and is con- 
scious he can neither palliate or redress it. The scenes of cruelty 
and desolation, which my own eyes have beheld, are beyond des- 
cription. The havoc which avarice, lust and wantonness have 
made in this fine growing country, will be remembered for ages 
— if its progress should cease to morrov/. The illiberal abuse 
of the King and his Ministers I detest — a false ambition and a 
mistaken idea of the true interest of the Nation has led them 
astray, but Flistory shews us that this is no novelty. I fear 
national pride must also be taken into the account — that pride 
which being transplanted to this country shews our descent, and 
perhaps is not unjustly termed obstinacy. In this state of things 
where can the man of honour and lover of his country set his 
foot ? On the one hand an unlimited submission which scarcely 
leaves a shadow of liberty — on the other a dreadful opposition 
subversive of every species of social and commercial happiness, 
and of which no end is yet to be seen — those v/ho prefer tem- 
porary ease and safety to essential libertv would find no difficulty 
in the choice ; but how can a man of honour, and who thinks 
himself bound to transmit to his posterity the blessings of free- 
dom unimpaired make the ignominious sacrifice ? 
Adieu my Dear Dennis. 

Most affedl'y Yours. 

Mrs, Reed to Mr De Berdt. 

"An opportunity of writing to vou, my dear Dennis, is now 
become so rare, that I could not think of letting this slip without 

S 



114 

sitting down to tell you our distresses. Flow shall I describe our 
situation for some months past ; your heart, I am sure, has already 
felt much for us, but you could not form any adequate idea of the 
scenes we have pass'd. Thank God our apprehensions and fears 
have not been altogether realized, but these were sufficient ; but 
one day's escape from an army of foreigners, and, for several 
weeks, within a few hours march of them, and since they have 
been driven back, we have understood they had planned a visit to 
our retreat. Nothing could be more distressing but the dreadful 
reality ; but a kind and overruling Providence protected us from 
the dangers we feared, and our retreat has been safe and com- 
fortable •, anything more we hardly dared to wish. Since the 
happy change in our affairs we look back without regret on our 
past distresses, and trust to the same Almighty Power which so 
evidently appeared then in our favour to deliver us from the hand 
of oppression which lately threatened to strike us to the dust. 
You will be surprised, I dare say, at the rapid and uninterupted 
progress the enem^y made thro' this province, but when I tell you 
the horrid blunder our Rulers made, it will easily account for it ; 
they enlisted their soldiers for a short time, some four, some six 
months ; the enemy, as might readily be supposed, were informed 
of this, and at the time our army was disbanding and did not con- 
sist of more than 3000 men, they marched thro' and took pos- 
session of the Province — what has happened since, and the hap- 
py change in which our arms have proved successful, you will 
hear from many quarters. Our prospects are brighter, our hopes 
are raised, our utmost efforts are exerting, and we devoutly trust 
in the favour and assistance of the Great Arbiter and Ruler of 
Nations, who alone can give success to our arms and peace to 
our land. 

Our domestic affairs have another change by the addition 
of a daughter, which happened just at the time my dear Mr. 
Reed was exposed to all the dangers and fatigues of a campaign. 
A kind Providence has preserved both our lives and we are now 
enjoying a few weeks together in peace and safety, but it is not 
Vv^ithout many anxious fears for the future. I cannot forget to 



te!l you that Mr. Reed has had some very narrow escapes 
of his life, once by one of our own men who was running away 
and he ordered to return to his duty, the fellow presented his 
musket within half a yard of his head, but it happily missed fire 
and another time in an engagement near N, Y. his horse was 
shot under him. But however great and complicated our diffi- 
culties and distresses have been, we have not been so fully taken 
up by them, but we have truly and affectionately shared in your 
happier prospects, and are anxious to hear that your hopes and 
expectations both in love and business are answered. Adieu, 
adieu, my dear Dennis, I know not when I shall have another 
opportunity of writing to you ; you must embrace every one of 
writing to us — I need not tell you that our Dear Mama remem- 
bers you with the utmost tenderness, or that I am. 

With the sincerest affection. 

Ever Yours, 

E. Reed. 

In less than a year after this, Mr. Reed's Administra- 
tion as President of the Executive Council of Pennsyl- 
vania, began. It continued by unanimous re-ele(5tion 
for three years-, and to its record of untiring and suc- 
cessful public service, I again appeal. 

One word more on tv/o minor matters which the pur- 
veyors of slanderous gossip, including Mr. Bancroft, 
have made subjed: of incidental- misrepresentation, — the 
allegations that Mr. Reed, when Adjutant General, stimu- 
lated local prejudices amongst the Continental troops, 
especially at the expense of the New England levies; 
and that there was an aftual interruption of friendly re- 
lations between General Washington and him, in con- 
seouence of a discoverv said to have been made as to the 



ii6 

Lee letter. This fidlon is, I believe, due to the 
imagination of Mr. John C. Hamilton who, conscious 
that between his ancestor and Washington there had 
been a personal difference, in no sense creditable to the 
younger man, conjured up this notion of a quarrel with 
Mr. Reed. 

The first imputation is to be found in a note to 
the Cadwalader pamphlet, and in a letter from Joseph 
Trumbull, an aid of Charles Lee, which has been 
recently and ostentatiously printed in the "resurrec- 
tion" of 1863.* Both of these I refer to, with the pas- 
sing comment that John Adams, who is quoted, was 
Doctor Rush's intimate friend, and that they were mem- 
bers of Congress when Mr. Reed was named as a Briga- 
dier. Th€ gossip is a curious confirmation of a remark 
somewhere made by Mr. Jay, in writing to Washington 
about Congress, that "there is as much intrigue as at 
the Vatican, and as much secrecy as in a boarding 
School." 

The two charges, such as they are, shall be noticed in 
order. 

L As to the New England troops. It is better on 

* This Joseph Trumbull seems to have been possessed with the 
spirit of seftionalism. "It is said" he wrote on 18 November, 1776, 
"that Mount Washington has surrendered. We don't yet learn particu- 
lars. I am glad a Southern officer commanded. The story is not told 
to his advantage here; be it as it may, we should not have heard the 
last of it from Reed and some others of his stamp, if a New England 
man had commanded." The two 'Southern' officers in command were 
Magaw and Lambert Cadwalader, both Pennsylvanians. 



117 

this as on other questions, to allow Mr. Reed to make 
his own defence. In a letter addressed to Congress on 
the subject of military promotion, in the spring or sum- 
mer following the events I have endeavoured to describe, 
he used this language: 

"While the camp was stationary and danger at a dis- 
tance, some crimes could not exist and others could not be 
prevented or punished; but when the approach of the 
enemy brought in the militia without any tincture of dis- 
cipline; when the hurry of retreat or action made it diffi- 
cult to go thro' the forms of trial, all restraints seemed to 
be broken down. A spirit of desertion, cowardice, plunder 
and shrinking from duty when attended with fatigue or 
danger, prevailed but too generally thro' the whole army. 
And why should I disguise any part of the truth by con- 
cealing that it was more conspicuous in one part of the 
army than another ? The Orderly Books and concurrent 
testimony of the impartial and sensible officers, even 
among themselves, will prove it. In this state of things 
when military justice was in a great degree suspended, 
and the discipline, the safety of the army, depended 
upon the private virtue and exertions of the officers, 
rather than the coercion of Government, it cannot 
be thought surprising that, in very populous States, 
many should have got into offices and commissions, who 
would prove unworthy of them in an hour of such se- 
vere trial, and endanger the service and distress this Com- 
mand. Answerable as I was for the safety of this army. 



ii8 

so far as it depended upon its guards — called by the duty 
of my office and orders, ten times repeated, to exert 
myself in preventing and punishing the great military 
offences I have noted before — I did speak freely, tho' 
generally in private, to such officers as failed in their dut^ 
by absence from camp on pretence of sickness, and 
brought to trial without favour, every officer or soldier 
who was charged with cowardice, fraud, plunder of the 
publick stores, or the poor inhabitants. There was not 
a person in this wide Continent more anxious than my- 
self to extinguish all distindlions except those which 
merit and service create; but it is impossible — it is too 
deeply rooted ever to be eradicated. I thought it not 
amiss to avail myself of what could not be remedied, and 
endeavoured to draw emulation from that source. The 
ignorant, the timid and the lazy, convinced that I am not 
vulnerable should they attempt to enter into particulars, 
took occasion to charge me with creating disunion and di- 
vision. Had my conversation embittered the mind of the 
General, or private correspondence those of any members 
of Congress — had it been the subjecft of open invidious 
comparison to officers of other Provinces, or even of pri- 
vate letters to my friends at home, there might be some 
colour for the charge, but my soul is above such prac- 
tices; what I said was to the faulty or their friends, 
openly and above all disguise, proceeding from an honest 
tho' perhaps too zealous a hope of amendment on points. 



119 

which if not: amended, must, sooner or later, end in the 
destrudlion of the Army, and finally of the cause itself."-^' 
It is surely not necessary at this time of day to justif)^, 
by evidence, language so clear and explicit. Washincr- 
ton's letters are full of it; candid New England 
historians admit the existence of a levellinti and 
unmilitary spirit, and, if specific proof of the disor- 
ganization, to use a mild word, of some of the New 
England troops be needed, I turn to the testimony 
of Colonel Joseph Trumbull himself, the witness pro- 
duced against Mr. Reed, who makes to his father, the 
Governor, this revelation: 

Honoured Sir, 

Enclosed I send you returns of some of the regiments of Con- 
necticut Militia, under command of Major-General Woostcr, such 
as I can get ; though I have called and called, again and again, for 
them, I believe there is but one of them which is really true, that 
is Major Brinsmadc's, who seems to be the honestest man. The 
fa6t is they cannot make their weekly and provision returns agree ; 
for this reason, they have made a number of brevet officers. 
They doubt whether these officers will be allowed extra rations; 
to avoid this, they return so many more men as to cover the ex- 
tra rations for these officers. You'll see by adverting to these 
returns that some companies have more officers than privates at 
best; but not content with that, and instead of sending home 

* "It is impossible for any one to have an idea of the complete 
equality which exists between the ofliccrs and men who compose the 
greater part of our troops. You may form some notion of it when I 
tell you that yesterday morning a Captain of Horse, who attends the 
General, was seen shaving one of his own men near the house." Let- 
ter to Mrs. Reed, OBoher ii, 1776. 



ICO 

the officers who have very few men, and turning those men over 
into other companies, they add brevet officers, not only to pick the 
pockets of the public here, but also, by and by, these brevet officers 
are to be dismissed from the militia rolls at home, and in a few 
times more being called forth, there will be no militia left in the 
State.* 

On this head, I have no more to say. 

II. The alienation from Washington. This is more 
plainly stated by Mr. John C. Hamilton than by any 
other writer, tho' Mr. Bancroft takes up the strain. 
Mr. Hamilton is the only one who enters into imagin- 
ary particulars — gives a reason for his assumed fads and 
fixes an exad: date — the month of November, 1780; as 
to which, I merely observe that even a moderately 
anxious inquirer after historical truth will need, and has 
a right to require, better evidence to establish either 
fad:s, dates, or theories, than Mr. Hamilton's aver- 
ments. No one knows this better than Mr. Bancroft. 
If, among the Hamilton papers or elsewhere, there 
is a written word confirmatory of this alienation and 
its imputed cause, the Lee correspondence, it can 
easily be produced. Till it is, I have a right to put 
it in the category of unscrupulous defamations. It 
is certainly true that after November 1780, the pri- 
vate correspondence of Washington and Reed, in a 
measure, ceased, but any one who will take the trouble, 

* 4th December, 1776. Forces' Archives, 5th Series, Vol. page 3, 

1073. 



121 



as I have had occasion to do, to examine the Archives 
of Pennsylvania while Mr. Reed was President, will see 
how constant and unreserved the public correspondence 
was, and I think it Is clear from an Inspedlion of Mr, 
Sparks* work, that towards the close of the War, Wash- 
ington's private correspondence with his friends every- 
where very much diminished. When, In August, 1780, 
President Reed marched to Trenton with the Pennsyl- 
vania Militia, his correspondence with his wife, printed in 
my Memoir, indicated a transient uneasiness as to some 
slight alienation on the part of General Washington."' 
With this exception, I do not find the least trace of the 
difference which the busy and malevolent men of this 
day have Insinuated, and am aware of no cause for any- 
thing of the kind. General Sullivan, between whom and 
Mr. Reed, there appears not to have been a friendly feel- 
ing, had written accusatory letters to Washington in 1779, 
but they evidently made no Impression, for there were In 
them allegations as to the Conway cabal, which Washing- 
ton knew to be groundless."}' Mr. Reed had nothing what- 
ever to do, diredly or indire6lly, with the Conway cabal. 

* Lite of Reed, Vol. II., page 248. In 1781, writing to Greene, 
President Reed said: "Washington complains of us all." (^Id. pp. 358.) 
Still later in the same year he writes : " The incessant mirepresenta- 
tions and calumnies with respedl to myself, and some unfriendly charac- 
ters about him have raised prejudices, of what nature I cannot tell, but 
this does not hinder my revering his charafler and doing justice to his 
merits and services. May he long and happily enjoy the laurels he has 
acquired." (Id. page 373.) 

'(" Sparks^ ''Letters to Washington,'''' Vol. 2, pace 366, 280. 

16 



122 

His enemies, such as Dodor Rush, were deeply implica- 
ted in it. Late in November, 1780, at least after the 22d, 
Mrs. Washington was the guest of Mr. Reed.* In 
06lober, 178 1, Mr. Reed v/rote to felicitate Washington 
on his victory over Cornwallis, and received the follow- 
ing reply: 

Mount Vernon^ 15 November., 1 78 1. 
Dear Sir, 

I have the honour to thank you most sincerely for your con- 
gratulations conveyed in your favour of the 27th ult. That our 
success against the enemy in the State of Virginia has been so 
happily effe6led, and with so little loss — and that it promises 
such favourable consequences, (if properly improved,) to the wel- 
fare and independence of the United States — is matter of very 
pleasing relleilion. I beg you to be assured that I am, with per- 
fect regard and esteem 

Dear Sir, your most obedient 

Flumble servant. 
To Hon. Joseph Reed, Esq^ Geo. Washington. f 

* Voyage de Chastellux, Vol. I., i6i. 

■j" In writing a formal lettor to the Executive Council, Washington 
said : *' I most sincerely thank you for your Icind wishes for my personal 
prosperity, and beg you to be assured that a full establishment of peace, 
liberty and independence, to this and the other United States of Ameri- 
ca, is my most ardent wish." In March, 1782, the following item is 
to be found in the Philadelphia newspapers: "Last Friday morning. 
His Excellency General Vv'ashington left this City, attended by the 
Honourable General Potter, Vice President of the State, General Reed, 
the late President, a number of gentlemen, officers of the Army, and 
also Captain Morris' Troop of City Light Llorse." Freeman'' s Journal, 
27 March, 1782. When Washington resigned his commission at Ana- 
polis, he said : "While I repeat mv obligations to the Army in general, 
I should do injustice to my own feelings not to acknowledge in this 
place the peculiar services and distinguished merits of the gentlemen 



123 

During the spring and summer of the next year, I am 
aware of no correspondence, Washington being, from time 
to time, in Philadelphia. In September, 1782, there 
were two letters with reference to this Cadwalader con- 
troversy, which may here with propriety be inserted, 
with no other comment than that they show, on one 
side, the consciousness of innocence which frankly and 
confidently appeals for justice, and on the other, the 
friendly readiness with which the appeal was met. It 
will be remembered that in General Cadwalader's reply 
to Mr. Reed, not a word of comment is made on 
Washington's letter. 

Reed to Washington. 

September 11, 1782. 
Dear Sir, 

After the services, sufferings, and anxieties of the winter of 
1776, I little expected that period would be sele6led as the season 
of my greatest reproach, and that I should stand publicly charged 
with not only meditating, but a6lually expressing intentions of de- 
serting to the enemy. Yet, sir, so it is ; not mere newspaper abuse, 
or transient report, but actually countenanced and supported by a 
person of some rank and appearance in the world. Having never 
asked or received any public favour from Congress, conscious of 
my own integrity, and deeply wounded with the cruel suggestion, 
I must appeal to your justice and candour, and most earnestly re- 
quest you would, by the bearer, who goes express for the purpose, 
favour me with a few lines expressive of your sense of my con- 

vvho have been attached to my person during the War. It was im- 
possible the choice of confidential officers to compose my family should 
have been more fortunate." 



124 

clu6l in the fall and v/inter of the year 1776; and particularly 
whether you ever heard, or at any time entertained doubts of my 
fidelity, and whether under the communications made to me 
of our military operations, an apprehended treachery on my part 
would not have made me a very dangerous character. 

I would farther beg you v/ould permit my making use of sun- 
dry letters I have received from you, at a time when you appeared 
to repose an unreserved confidence in me, and of which, I can 
appeal to that God who knows the secrets of all hearts, I was 
not (in point of integrity) unworthy. 

As I never availed myself of your Excellency's friendship to 
seek for honour or profit, or even for the reparation of losses 
actually sustained in the service, I have the fullest confidence 
that you will most cheerfully comply with this, to me, most in- 
teresting request; and should you descend to particulars, you 
will be pleased to point them to the period which intervened 
between our retreat from Hackensack, and the revival of our 
affairs at Princeton. 

My memory suggests to me a letter I wrote your Excel- 
lency from Bristol, containing reasons for an attack on the enemy; 
if that letter can be obtained, I am persuaded it contains senti- 
ments of a very different nature from those of which I complain, 
and would be particularly useful.* 

I shall make no other use of any communication I now have, 
or you may favour me with, than to vindicate my own character 
against the malignant imputation of intending a desertion to the 
enemy. And am. 

With the greatest respect, 

Your Excellency's humble servant, 

Joseph Reed. 



* This was the "Pomroy" letter, the history of which I have 
already given — supra page 43, 



125 

Washington to Reed. 

Verplanck^s Pointy 15 September^ 1782. 



Dear Sir, 



The appeal contained in your letter of the iith inst. is equally 
unexpected and surprising. 

Not knowing the particular charges that are alleged against 
you, it is impossible for me to make a specific reply, I can there- 
fore only say in general terms that the employments you sustained 
in the year 1776, and in that period of the year when we exper- 
ienced our greatest distresses are a proof that you was not suspect- 
ed by me of infidelity, or want of integrity; for had the least 
suspicion of the kind reached my mind, either from observation 
or report, I should most assuredly have marked you out as a fi.t 
object of resentment. 

While on our retreat through Jersey, I remember vour being 
sent from Newark, to the Assembly of New Jersey, then sitting, 
Co rouse and animate them to spirited measures for our support -, 
and at the same time General Mifflin was sent to Pennsylvania 
for the same purpose. This employment was certainly a mark 
of my confidence in you at that time. 

Your conduct, so far as it came to my immediate notice, 
during the short period we lay on the west bank of the Delaware, 
appeared solicitous for the public good. And your conduct at 
Princeton evidenced a spirit and zeal, which to me appeared 
laudable and becoming a man well affected to the cause we were 
engaged in. 

It is rather a disagreeable circumstance, to have private and 
confidential letters, hastily written as all mine of that class 
are, upon a supposition that they would remain between the par- 
ties only, produced as evidence in a matter of public discussion, 
but conscious that my public and private sentiments, are at all 
times alike, I shall not withhold these letters should vou think 
them absolutely necessary to your justification. 



126 

If I have in my possession any such letter as you particularly al- 
lude to, it is not at present with me — being in the field perfectly 
light, I have divested myself of all papers, public and private ; but 
such of late date as I thought I might have occasion, in my present 
situation, to refer to ; the others remain at a considerable distance 
from me. 

I am. Dear Sir, 

Your obedient and most humble servant, 

G. Washington. 

The Hon. Joseph Reed, Esq. 



My work is now done. It has gone far beyond the 
limits, which, when I began to write, I thought would 
circumscribe it; but it has grown on my hands, and 
hoping to make an end of these inveterate slanders, 
I have thought it best to deal with them in detail, 
and to collate every item of historical evidence, how- 
ever minute, that I know to exist. I do not hope to 
have it said that these questions have been discussed in 
a judicial spirit, for I am conscious of strong feelings 
which may have aifedled my judgment. But I am sure 
that nothing has been intentionally overstated or mis- 
represented, and no evidence held back which was ap- 
parently adverse. If I have been betrayed into asperity 
of language, let it be borne in mind how dark are the 
accusations made against my ancestor, that crimes are 
imputed to him of the deepest hue of guilt, described in 
the strongest language, and what stealthy and systematic 
industry has been shown by the living purveyors of cal- 



127 

umny, one and all, having for their aim to injure me and 
mine. If, in anything I have been compelled to say, 
pain has been given to the living, I mean the innocent 
living, while it is a matter of great regret, let it be re- 
membered, the re-awakening of these controversies is no 
work of mine. For more than twenty years have I sub- 
mitted in silence to periodical revivals of this poison- 
ous rubbish of the past, and I now reludbantly present 
to the public this vindication of the dead, in justice to 
my family, and to the Truth of History. 



128 



POSTSCRIPT. 

I have not thought it worth while to notice Mr. Ban- 
croft's minute criticisms on my 'Biography of Reed.' 
Looking over the twenty years which have rolled by 
since the Book was published, I am glad that ill nature 
can deted so few mistakes. I am tempted however to 
reproduce the opinions of five eminent American pub- 
lic men, of v/idely different charaders and positions, 
which at the time gave me — then a young author — great 
pleasure. 

"For a grandson," wrote Albert Gallatin, ''you are 
very reserved and temperate in your estimation of your 
ancestor's great name. I can assure you, when I 
entered public life in 1790, his memory was most 
enthusiastically revered by the party to which I was 
attached, and I heard various true anecdotes and 
several suggestions highly honourable to him. Amongst 
the last was the general belief that the decisive march 
from Trenton to Princeton was suggested by him. But 
the great value of your Biography consists in the num- 
ber of authentic fads and documents, now for the first 
time published, and which throw much light on the gen- 
eral history of the Revolution." 



129 

From Chancellor Kent. 

Su}nmit^ Essex Co.^ N. 'J.. 'July 9, 1847. 



Dear Sir. 



I hope you will not take amiss this intrusive note from a 
stranger. My domicil is the City of New York, but I am here 
in a country cottage with my family for the summer, and I have 
just finished the earnest and interesting perusal of your "Life 
and Correspondence of Joseph Reed," your paternal grandfather, 
and I feel gratified for the pleasure and instruction )'ou have 
afforded me bv vour two volumes. It is a most interesting and 
admirable history of one of the ablest and purest of patriots of the 
Revolution. The portraits of President Reed, of Washington, 
of Greene, are admirable, and they were tiiree of the great ac1:ors 
in the great scenes of that dav. I want lansruage to express my 
sense of the-r illustrious merits. Your volumes are v/ritten with 
the greatest dignit\' a;)d truth. I purchased them as soon as thev 
were out and though I took with me Prescott's Peru, I have 
•massed it by as iniinitel\- less interesting than vour Memoir. 1 
am a great admirer o? contemporary history of these past events 
with the perfect authenticity that original correspondence affords. 
I am old enough to recollect vividly the historical events from 
the battle of Lexington to the present day, and listened when 
young to all the nevv^s, and rumours, and handbills, and news- 
papers that were shov/n and r :ad through the earl\- campaigns 
of the American War, and I have the recollection and feelings 
of a contemporarv. I was dri\en from New Haven College on 
the 5th of July, 1779, and fled to my father's house at Fairneld. 
The next morning, I saw it in flames caused by British incen- 
diaries, I fled to the vicinity of Norwalk where my maternal 
grandfather's house was burned, and e\en the humble school 
liouse in which I was taught mv earliest teachings. In 1781, I 
left College and was placed in the office of Mr. Benson, the 
Attorney General of the State, and there I saw from time to 
time, and listened to the great men who visited there — such as 
George Clinton, Washington, Hamilton, Lawrence, Schuyler, 



I30 

Dana, Duane, &c., and imbibed the utmost veneration for such 
chara6lers. It is no wonder I take such a deep interest in such 
works as yours — and so I did in 'Gibbs' History of Federalism, 
during the life of his grandfathei-, Oliver Wolcott, and in Judge 
Burnet's History of the N. W. Territory. I consider yours 
and such histories as monuments of the great men of the Revo- 
lutionary Age. 

Please excuse this perhaps impertinent narrative, and accept 
my gratitude for the honour you have done your country, and 
the pleasure you have afforded by the discharge of filial duty to 
one of the best and most faultless men that took part in the 
Revolution. 

Believe me to be, with 

the highest respect, Y'rs, 

James Kent. 



. From John Sergeant of Pennsylvania. 

*•' I have finished the first volume of the ' Life and Correspon- 
dence,' and will be glad to have the second as soon as may be. 
I have found it very interesting, and the interest to increase as I 
have gone on. It appears to me that the work v/ill be likely to 
take a strong hold, and I hope will repay you for your labour. 
It is a curious history of the details, in their natural proportions, 
of an eventful period, and of the a6i:ual workings of men in 
times of difficulty and danger, without exaggeration or colouring. 
The chief figure cannot be said to be brought out. It brings 
out itself without any effort in the narrative for effe£l. I am 
myself surprised at its stature and power as exhibited in a simple, 
unaffected statement of facts, all authenticated by unquestioned 
evidence." 

Mr. Calhoun, wrote to me from Fort Hill, in South 
Carolina, on the 6th of November, 1847: 



13 ^ 

"I have devoted my first leisure hours to the perusal of your 
work, and have just finished it. I am greatly indebted for the 
information and pleasure it afforded. It gives fuller and more 
accurate information of some of the most important occurrences 
of the Revolution, and of the character of many of the princi- 
pal actors in that great drama. High as my opinion was 
of your distinguished ancestor, the perusal of this work has 
raised him still higher in my estimation. His letters are his best 
eulogist, and will ever place him in the first rank of the great 
men who achieved our Independence, for talent, integrity, devo- 
ted patriotism, and important services rendered to the cause and 
co-Lintrv." 



Lastly, from Mr. Sparks, to v/hose kind offices I was 
deeply indebted, and v/hose gentle and tolerant judgment 
on all vexed historical questions is so strongly in con- 
trast with the carping asperities of these times, I received 
this charadleristic note: 

Cambridge^ September 24, 1847. 

" I obtained a copy of your work as soon as it came out, and 
looked it through, and read parts of it carefully. The opinion 
which I had formed of the first volume was sustained to the end. 
It is a valuable collection of new historical materials, and put to- 
gether with singular good judgment, conveying clear and accu- 
rate impressions of characters and facts. I know of no work 
of this class of more successful execution. In my opinion, it is 
a model of historical biography. The moderation and candour 
with which you have touched upon controverted points, or rather 
the heats of local and temporary politics, must defeat all the aims 
of ill natured criticism, if any are disposed to criticise in this 
temper." 



And he adds, speaking of the Cadwalader affair: 

" I think vou are quite v/ise in letting all those old matters 
sleep. Your book will stand on its merits. It needs no props." 

I hesitate to add the following:; which gratified me once, 
but which has no value now: 

" I must renew to you my thanks for your most valuable 
volumes. They form the most important contribution to 
American Revolutionary History which has been made for man\- 
vears. In performing a duty towards the m.emory of your an- 
cestor, you have not failed to do a good service to your country. 
Let me say again how much I am obliged to you for your 
volumes, partly as a token of vour regard, still more as an 
American and a student of our history, happy in everything that 
illustrates it so elaborately and so well." 

\'ery trub/, 

Your obliged, 

London^ February l.f/, 1848. George BANCROFT. 



THE END, 



